A/N: Just this once, my friends, everybody lives! Your excessively timely update this week is brought to you by the wonderful invention that was Labor Day weekend, and my awesome sister who reads this stuff I scribble and tells me if things are 'glaringly bothersome'. Lol, I love her though, for real :)
To ThatOneGuest: That's actually a brilliant idea. Totally using that. I'm thinking Loki shows up at Peter's house utterly bored to death. Tricksy shenanigans will ensue…
He remembered telling Mr. Stark that he didn't feel good.
His Spidey sense had been screaming again-not that it had abated since the moment Thanos appeared-and he'd known that something was coming to take him away.
Usually, his Spidey sense came with a direction.
The danger's over there, duck that way.
This time had been different. He couldn't duck, dodge, hide, or throw a web at the danger. It had been everywhere. Nowhere had been safe.
Peter floated. At least, he felt like he was floating, except he didn't think he had a body anymore. It probably should have freaked him out, but it didn't.
Everything was a sort of nice, glowy, orangey color.
How was he seeing things, anyway? Did he have eyes?
There were lots of paler orange bubbles floating with him, gently moving nowhere. They seemed nice.
He was pretty sure he was a bubble, too.
Peter remembered the Stone that Loki had mentioned, the one called the Soul Stone, and he realized just how many bubbles were floating with him.
He wished he couldn't see.
Peter wondered who else was in here with him. He'd seen a few people disappear before he had, so they were probably in here, too.
They could be any of the other bubbles, though, and there were a lot of bubbles.
Maybe that bubble was a celebrity. And that one could be a world leader. Or a Nobel prize winner. Maybe one was Neil deGrasse Tyson. That would be cool; Peter had always wanted to meet him. Or not cool, actually. Peter didn't really want him to be trapped in here.
He wondered if everyone else, in their little bubbles, was as aware of their predicament. What if someone had been asleep when the Soul Stone snatched them? Were they still asleep? When they got out of here, would they still be asleep and wake up later like nothing had happened?
Peter wondered if he could fall asleep in here.
He couldn't fall asleep.
Glowy bubbles weren't a bad look, but they were low on mobility. He was jittery. How that was possible, when he didn't have a body, he couldn't explain.
He'd run through his academic decathlon flashcards, Spanish vocab, the Periodic Table, Chemistry and Physics formulas and equations, and planned his English essay on Gatsby that was due next week. Literally everything he could remember, he went over and over. Five times, ten times, a hundred, a thousand times.
MJ would be so proud.
The orangey-ness was all very peaceful.
It was like those sensory-deprivation tanks. He couldn't speak, couldn't hear, couldn't feel. Peter had thought those would be fun to try sometime. Give his super-senses a break for once. All would be calm, serene.
It could have been five minutes. Or five hours. Days. Years. Decades. Centuries.
He wanted to scream.
Peter kept thinking he was going to get out of this. He knew it was wildly optimistic. Thanos had all the Stones, and, despite Loki's confidence, he didn't see how they could win. But he still caught himself thinking about things he'd do once he got out.
Find out if Neil deGrasse Tyson got sucked into the Stone, too.
Start a support group for people who'd been in the Stone.
They'd probably need it.
Peter missed Aunt May. And Ned, and MJ. It was great and all, having a space adventure and fighting to save the world, but right now he'd give up being Spiderman to hear Aunt May's voice.
Even if it was her yelling that he was grounded.
He wished he could cry, but there were only silent bubbles.
There was a change, eventually. It felt like a ripple. All the bubbles swayed.
The orangey-ness began to change. It got darker, slowly. It was like a wave, rolling in.
A green wave.
The bubbles started disappearing. All of them, as the green crept closer, were just… gone.
Peter was terrified of it, but the green reminded him of Loki's seidr, a bit.
Suddenly, it was only green, no more orange at all, and it was nice. He could almost feel again-and then there was a voice.
The tone wrapped around him softly.
"Come back, little Spider," it said.
Peter couldn't speak, but he didn't need to. The green swept him up.
It was a weird feeling, being whooshed out of the Soul Stone. Sorta like swinging from skyscrapers on his webs. Terrifying and thrilling, and most of all, joyful.
And then Peter was back in his body. Right there on the ground where he'd left from. Mr. Stark, standing over him, was crying. That was concerning, but the light, the noise, even the smells, they were suddenly all far too much. His body still ached from the battle, too.
Peter curled up, as tight as he could, arms wrapped around his eyes and ears. He wanted to ask Karen to turn on the 'Sensory Overload' settings, but even the thought of whispering had him cringing. He tried to shut everything out.
He heard Mr. Stark calling his name, but then everything became muted. Mr. Stark must have had Friday tell Karen to dim everything.
Eventually, Peter felt himself relaxing.
"Karen?" he whispered.
"Yes, Peter?" Karen asked, at a volume so low that Peter knew he wouldn't have heard it without his super-hearing.
"You can turn everything back up," he said, slightly louder. "Just, uh, go slow."
"Of course, Peter."
Peter carefully peeled his arms off of his own head, and slowly opened one eyelid. Mr. Stark was still there. His eyes looked a little red, but he wasn't crying, anymore. He cracked a smile.
"How ya feel, kid?"
"I'm better, now," Peter croaked as he tried to speak at a normal level. "What happened? How long's it been?"
"Thirteen and a half minutes," Mr. Stark said, and then, with a note of worry, "Why, how long did you think it'd been?"
"Dunno," mumbled Peter, slowly wiggling his fingers and toes, just to feel them. "Just… longer than minutes." Mr. Stark sighed.
"Alright, kid. Lay it on me. How bad was it? In the Stone?"
"It was… orange," Peter managed, struggling to describe it, and also really not wanting to talk about it.
"Orange."
"Yup."
"That's it?"
"Pretty much," Peter mused. "Orange, and more orange, and then-Loki!"
He tried to stand, and half succeeded, toppling over and catching himself on Mr. Stark's armor.
"Woah, woah," Mr. Stark said, propping him back up, "What do you need him for? He's fine, killed a Titan, saved a universe, whatever. See, he's over there, not even a scratch."
Peter looked. Sure enough, Loki was there.
He did look a little disheveled, but that was probably because Thor had almost completely enveloped him in his arms. Loki didn't even look like he was struggling all that much to get free, despite his disgruntled expression.
"Loki!" Peter called, stepping away from Mr. Stark and approaching the brotherly reunion.
Loki proved that he'd been enjoying the hug more than his face suggested by getting out of it in under a second.
"Little Spider," said Loki, warmly, and then he hugged Peter.
It was nice. He was a surprisingly good hugger. Plus, Peter had a great view of Thor's gobsmacked expression (and everyone else's who'd migrated over to see who defeated Thanos) at Loki's uncharacteristic display of affection.
"I heard you, in there," Peter mumbled into Loki's chest.
"You heard me?" Loki asked, pulling back to look down at him.
"Yeah. It was all orangey-ness, and then there was green, and you, uh, told me to come back, and then I was here again. How'd you do it?"
"Yeah, I'd kinda like to hear that, too!" Mr. Stark called from behind him.
Surprise and relief were funny expressions to see on Loki, because he was always so guarded, but those soon melted into a smile, and then a laugh, and he was gripping Peter's shoulders to keep from falling over, he was laughing so hard. It was strange, but Peter didn't mind, even though the gauntlet on Loki's right hand was poking into him uncomfortably.
And what the heck, how did he get that? Thanos had seemed, well, unstoppable, but clearly he wasn't, because there was a big purple corpse over by Dr. Strange, and the gauntlet was chilling on Loki's hand.
"Hey, still waiting, here," Mr. Stark said irritably.
Peter looked around, and realized they'd gathered quite an audience: all the Avengers, Panther dude, some lady with a spear that looked super badass, the Guardians, a green lady, the blue chick with the space name he couldn't remember, and… a raccoon… in a tree… playing an old Nintendo? What even was his life, anymore?
Loki finally caught his breath, almost wiping at his eyes with the wrong hand, but he didn't look inclined to answer any questions.
"I can explain," Dr. Strange sighed, stepping forward. "We created receptacles that could hold the energy and mimic the properties of the Stones in our possession."
Everyone blinked at the sorcerer. Peter had understood that, but really he could've just said-
"Fakes. You made fake Infinity Stones," Mr. Stark said, sounding very doubtful.
"I am particularly skilled at such things," Loki said, somehow managing to sound like he had been insulted and like he didn't care at all at the same time.
"Especially snakes," Peter heard Thor mutter.
"And they were relatively powerless," Loki finished.
"Powerless?" Scarlet Witch cried, clutching Vision's hand tightly. "They wiped out half the universe!"
"And I brought it back," Loki raised an eyebrow, and glanced at Vision pointedly. "You're welcome."
"I think what we'd really all like to know is," someone chimed in, and Peter had to do a double take, because when had Captain America gotten a beard? "Why wait? You could've destroyed them, instead of making fake ones. Why let him get this far?"
"He would have won with the ones he did manage to get-and we would not have had any defense," Dr. Strange said, sharply.
"There was one Stone which neither of us could justify sacrificing what it asked for to obtain," Loki added heavily, and Peter saw Starlord pull the green lady closer into his side. "Besides, warfare is all about deception, and Thanos was never good at it. He exposed himself when he thought he'd won."
"So you could cut off all the heads at once," a new voice said softly, and Peter was startled to see it was the Winter Soldier, who had a good-humored glint in his eye as he nodded toward the purple head on the ground.
"Ha!" laughed the raccoon in the tree next to him. Peter wasn't even surprised. "That was funny, pal. Good one! Cut off all the heads, ha!"
The Winter Soldier rolled his eyes, but the raccoon's loud amusement had broken the weird tension between everyone, and the focus shifted away from Loki.
Peter cleared his throat hesitantly. "So, uh, where will you go now?"
Loki didn't respond right away, his brows furrowing as he looked around.
"Cuz you could, um, you could come to my house, you know, if you want. I'll tell Aunt May you saved the universe and stuff, she won't mind at all."
"Thank you, Peter," Loki said quietly, his eyes following Thor through the crowd of heroes. "But I think, perhaps, I will go home first."
"Okay," Peter said, and he was happy that Loki was giving his brother another shot. "But you gotta promise you'll visit, because Aunt May will definitely bake a walnut loaf for you, and you'd like it, they're really, really good."
Loki smiles, a real smile.
"I wouldn't miss it for all the Nine Realms."
*sniffs* Only the epilogue left for this one, dear readers!
