"How many times do I gotta tell you, I'm fine." Peter rolled his eyes when his mother rearranged his pillow for the tenth time just within the past hour.
It's been a few days since he had woken up and his family was still hovering around him like he was gonna collapse at any given moment.
Which, ok...he didn't feel, good...but he was getting there...
It wasn't that surprising to the young man to see his right arm gone when he awoke, he had already gone through that with his hand five years previous so he wasn't gonna wast anymore valuable time on crying about something that he couldn't help.
He'd save that for late nights when he couldn't sleep...
What was a little surprising was his eye. They had told him that his eye was gone, but when he woke up he could still see so he didn't understand that until Thor said he had given him his eye.
Which was kinda cool if Peter was being honest, who knew the god had a fake eye.
"Really? If you're fine then why are you wincing every five seconds, hmm?" Natasha asked while slightly glaring at her son. Peter only offered her a small amused smile and a shrug of his one good shoulder in response though.
"I'm not dead, so I count that as a win."
"It's way too early to be making those kinds of jokes and you know that." Her glare turned a little more heated but Peter could still see the look in her eyes, how much she was hurting because of what happened to him so he decided he should probably lay off on those kinds of jokes for a while.
At least until he could walk again...
"When are they getting here?" Peter asked, changing the subject.
"They should be here in a couple minutes." She said. He could tell by her tone of voice that they weren't done with this conversation, but she was willing to move on for the moment.
Helen, Tony and Bruce were all coming over to help attach his new arm to what was left of his right side after finally finishing the arm.
They had showed him the final product from Tony's tablet and it was almost a perfect copy of Bucky's arm but instead of all the gold, it was a dark silver with carbon fiber black just like his old hand that he had made.
It was perfect.
Just like Nat had said, a couple minutes after she sat down at the chair to his right, Helen, Tony and Bruce all walked into the room with Bruce holding his new arm in his hands.
When Helen made eye contact with him, she smiled, "So, since I know how impatient you are when you're stuck in bed, I'll get right to it," once she said that, she got a slight glare from Peter and a quiet chuckle from Natasha, "We already placed the sensors under your skin when you were in a coma, and Wakanda helped attach a Vibranium plate to what's left of your shoulder so the arm can fit into place without any trouble so this should only take a few seconds. Can you please move over so you're sitting on the side of the bed?" She asked.
Peter nodded his head and slowly as to not to pull at his scars that much, moved down his bed so he was sitting toward the end of it with his feet on the ground. His mother moved from the seat to sit onto his left side and placed a comforting hand on his good shoulder, causing the young assassin to look over with a small smile to show his gratitude.
Bruce and Helen walked over while Tony stayed back for a bit to let the two actual doctors do their thing. They pressed a button on the arm and then a similar looking one on the metal plate on Peter's right shoulder before Bruce carefully slid the arm into place while Helen locked it in.
Peter suddenly felt a jolt in his right side causing him to slightly grimace. He looked up at Helen and realized she was smiling gently back at him, "Go on, see if you can move it."
With the permission granted, Peter slowly tried to do something simple with the arm, just a simple up and down move to see if it would actually work and to his surprise, his arm started to slowly move up.
He stopped it when it was slightly raised in front of him and he curled his wrist a bit and clenched his new metal fist.
He could still feel too...which was a bonus.
He breathed out a little in disbelief and a small, but real smile made its way across his face. He looked up towards his mother and realized she was already smiling warmly at him.
Peter huffed before he laid his head down across her shoulder and slightly bumped their heads together. He could feel how she sighed in relief and did the same thing to him, laying her head down on top of his.
"We'll get out of your hair alright? If you have any trouble or anything don't be afraid to tell one of us, I'm sure Shuri wouldn't mind making a trip over here to see what the problem is." Bruce said causing Tony to huff in the background.
"I take offense to that big green, I helped make that arm too you know. If anything I would be the one to fix it." Tony raised an eyebrow at the doctor.
"Oh I don't know Tony, I mean, Shuri is the expert." Peter teased the genius. Tony mock glared at him but on the inside he was smiling, Peter rarely ever called him by his first name, it was only ever Stark in the years that he has known the young assassin.
It was nice to know that he's finally got the kid to call him Tony.
After Helen and Bruce left, Tony looked at the mother and son duo in happiness and offered them a smile before he too excused himself.
Things were starting to look up...
—————
"That's it kid, you're doing great, just a little further and we'll stop for the day." Rhodey said from his position at the other end of the bar, watching as Peter held onto it with his left hand while trying to stabilize himself on his wobbly feet.
Peter gritted his teeth in concentration, trying so hard to just get his stupid fucking feet to work.
He was in his physical therapy session with Rhodey...
He didn't want any of his family there to see him like this, but Rhodey had experience in this subject, him having to go through it himself when he had to get the braces.
And according to him, it was fucking brutal and he was gonna wanna strangle the older man when they were done with each session.
The Colonel was a hundred percent right, Peter was about five seconds away from stabbing the guy and leaving him to bleed out on the floor.
But he restrained himself...
Just barley...
Peter closed his eyes and grunted before he removed his arm from the bar and slowly started to move one foot in front of the other, slowly but surely making his way over to the end of the bar where Rhodey was.
When he made it to the end, Rhdoey laid a comforting hand on his shoulder to help steady him a bit and offered him a smile, "Well done Kid. Don't worry, you're already doing better than I did when I started. You'll be up and swinging around New York in no time."
"Yeah, I hope so." Peter grunted.
"Like I said, for you it'll be sooner than you think."
With all that said Rhdoey helped to guide the young man out of the room, which was an old gym that the Avengers hadn't used in years.
Rhodey offered to take them up to Peter's level where Mary Jane, his daughter, Natasha, Yelena, Ana and Gwen were all staying and Peter quickly agreed, he had to do something and he knew that all of them weren't on their floor at the moment.
Yelena and Nat were in a meeting with the other avengers on a different floor, Ana and Gwen went out to help Fury with something he needed help on and his girlfriend and daughter were out for the day spending time with Mary Jane's aunt.
And Rhodey was gonna join the others down in the meeting once he brought Peter back up to his floor which left him by himself to check on a certain AI who was watching over some things...
When they got up there, and Rhodey settled him down onto the couch, the older man made Peter promise he wouldn't get up and cause too much trouble unless he had to go to the bathroom which Peter quickly agreed to.
He had stuff to do anyways...
As soon as Rhodey was gone, Peter leaned over to grab his tablet that was on the coffee table to the left of him. Before he even got to unlock the tablet though, he got bombarded with a giant face full of fur.
Peter chuckled and patted Sonia on the side and smiled at her, "Hey girl, did you miss daddy? I know, I missed you too." He offered his dog one last pat before she settled down onto his lap. He huffed a laugh before he unlocked his tablet and got to work.
"IVAN, status report."
"Sir, a lot has happened in your absence and might I be the first to welcome you back." His AI responded.
"We'll sorry to break it to you IVAN, but SCARLETT already did that, but I appreciate it anyways. Now, what's happened? How's Karli handling things?"
Peter knew something was wrong when his AI didn't respond to the question until five seconds after he asked, "Well, she's gone sir."
"What do you mean by gone?"
"She left the island a few weeks ago sir, with her group of friends, I believe there was a total of eight of them, including her."
"Why'd she leave?" He asked. It didn't make sense to him, he trusted her with looking out for things while he was gone, and she just up and left?
Something fishy was going on, and Peter wanted to know what was happening...
"Sir...before she left she allowed entrance to a doctor Wilfred Nagel, basically right after you went into a coma." Once he heard the name, he instantly tensed. He knew that name, the name of a man who worked on the super soldier serum for Hydra.
The man was just starting to get his footing back after the winter soldier project got shut down, trying to replicate what was given to Steve and Peter would have gone after him to make sure his work didn't get out there but then Thanos happened and he, along with half of the universe popped out of existence.
He completely forgot about him until just this second...
"IVAN, please tell me he didn't make what I think he did?"
"I'm sorry sir, but he certainly did. Made twenty vials and Karli and her friends stole them before leaving the island."
Peter sighed, "And let me guess, there's only twelve left since she and the rest of them took the other eight."
"You'd be correct."
Peter glared at the opposite wall, "So now there's eight goddamn super soldiers on the run. Do you know why she took the serum, or what her motives are?"
"I heard conversations with them talking about the GRC, how they're decisions are making the eight of them quite angry. From what I could gather, they especially don't like how the government is kicking people out of their homes." His AI said.
Peter's glare didn't lessen but if you looked into his eyes, they did soften just a fraction. At least she wasn't trying to kill people with the serum. He always did express how he liked to look out for the little guys so...maybe that was what she was doing, trying to look out for all those people.
God he hoped so, or else he'd have to kill the kid, and he didn't really wanna do that.
"Keep me posted on Nagel alright, it took him months to make twenty vials of the serum, I want updates about that regularly understand? Nothing happens without me knowing about it."
"Yes sir, I'll be sure to send you weekly reports about what I find, I hope you have a speedy recovery." IVAN said before he went offline.
"You and me both IVAN...you and me both."
———
They were all in the common room when Tony came storming through the elevator looking not to pleased.
"Tony?" Steve asked hesitantly.
The genius didn't even bother answering the soldier, he stormed right up to where Peter and Mary Jane were sitting on the couch together. When he got in front of them he stared at Peter right in the eyes before he spoke.
"You have something you wanna tell us kid?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, causing the whole room to stop what they were doing to look at the young man.
"What're you talking about?" Peter asked, confused on why Tony looked so mad.
"I was going through Friday's servers and the connection she has with SCARLETT when I found a copy of a file that I found quite interesting. Mind telling them about the video that I just watched kid?" Tony said causing Peter to tense. If it's the video that Peter's thinking of, he was in for an earful from everyone.
"You weren't supposed to see that." Peter murmured under his breath but everyone still heard him.
"What is he talking about?" Yelena asked with a suspicious eyebrow raised at her nephew.
Peter was about to talk when Tony interrupted him, "Oh no, I-I'm just gonna show you all the...t-the recording alright? We'll see what you all have to say after this." Tony said as he moved over to his wife and sat down while tapping a few things on his watch which caused the tv to turn off and a holo projector to extend out of the ceiling. Morgan then jumped up on her father's lap and snuggled up close to him causing a brief smile to break across his face.
As soon as Tony started up the projection, a hologram of Peter was standing right in front of them and looking at them with so much sadness in his eyes that caused some of their hearts to break just a little.
"So...uh, I'm...not sure what I have to say. It's...we've all just got back from collecting the stones and...well, it was all gonna go according to my plan you know? I knew there was a good chance that when I offered to get the soul stone, I'd have to die for it. I...I never took into account that my sister would try and stop me though..." HoloPeter said while taking a sip of a bottle of vodka.
When his family heard that he knew about the sacrifice of the stone, they all casted him accusing glances and some people, like his mother, aunt and Girlfriend were glaring.
He knew better then to speak up though, this message was far from over.
"She...she knew...she knew what I was planning...that I wasn't planning on making it back...and I'll never forgive myself. She's the one that always wanted to have a life outside of killing...k-killing innocent people like me. But here I am...alive...and she's not..."
Ana frowned and pulled Gwen closer against her chest. The topic of Gwen dying was still a little sore for her, she didn't like to think about it but she wasn't dead, she still had her girlfriend with her and she wasn't dead.
But it didn't change the fact that she was and no one told her until Gwen was back alive again.
The thought of having to live without her, feels like a thousand little needles stabbing her heart at the same time.
But the thought of having to live without both of them...is like someone stole her heart, threw it on the ground and stomped on it...
Thousands of times...
"I...I can't shake this feeling though...this feeling I've had since coming back with all those stones. It's like...something is gonna happen and...I just wanna make sure that if something happens to me...I leave something behind for you all."
Natasha shook her head sadly, even in times like this Peter always thought of others before himself...
"If we...get everyone back...if half of the universe is returned...and something happens to me...like...I don't make it back...I'll be ok with that."
Of course, of course her son would think that.
Her stupid, self sacrificing, kind, caring, genius son would be ok with his death.
God she was already feeling the tears...
"I've done a lot of bad things in my life and if I have to sacrifice myself to save every single person...so be it. It's uhh...the universes way of me paying for my sins...all those people I killed, they deserved life, not what I gave them."
"That wasn't your fault." Mary Jane mumbled into Peter's ear as they sat on the couch together with their daughter in her lap and Sonia laying her head on Peter's.
Peter didn't say anything, but she could tell he didn't believe her all the way.
"I'm sorry, but uhh...I never even planned on making it this far in my life. If I'm being honest, I thought the other Widows in the academy would've kill me before I got to the point were I was stronger then them all. I...never thought I'd make it out and have a life of my own...friends...family...a girlfriend...a...a-a daughter..."
Everyone heard the break in his voice when he said his daughter and they all grew a little sad, she was in the room with them after all and she probably didn't understand the severity that this message carried.
What it would have meant for her if her father actually did die that day on the battlefield.
Mary Jane brought her daughter closer against her chest. She didn't like the thought of raising May without Peter.
Even if Peter didn't see it, everyone else saw what an amazing father he was to May and how much a daddy's girl she actually was.
If Peter died, May would never be the same...
"Listen, if...if you're watching this Mayday, the only thing you need to know about your father, is that he loves you, so much. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Your, y-your dad is an inventor and he's made a lot of things over the years..."
"But my greatest creation, will always be you princess, don't ever forget that."
"Daddy?" May asked form her spot on Mary Jane's lap, holding out her hands to her father. Peter smiled softly at her and picked her up and laid her against his shoulder. The little girl snuggled up real close to her father and nuzzled her nose against his neck.
"Daddy loves you baby, and he always will." He whispered so quietly so only his daughter could hear.
"I know your mother will take care of you if I'm not there. You might, grow up hating me for not being there a-and I wouldn't put it against you if you do kid...just know I love you and...I always will." HoloPeter said with a tear leaking down from his eye, looking at the camera with a wet smile.
"I know this will hurt you mom, but don't shut people out because i'm gone. Be there for them too, as much as they will be for you. You need as many people by your side as I did."
Natasha quietly scoffed, her son needed to stop thinking about others when it was his life that was in danger, not someone else's.
But his words did ring in her ears, he knew even before Thanos came back that she would have shut people out if something happened.
Her son was always ten steps ahead of everyone...
"This...don't think of this as something bad. I want you all to think of this as...my next big adventure...You know what the best part of adventures are?" HoloPeter looked up at them with a small melancholic smile.
"You never know how they're gonna end...and that's part of the fun..."
"Love you all...and I always will."
The projection shut off and the room was left in silence. The only sound that could be heard was the slight sniffles coming off of most of the occupants there.
Well that was until somebody broke it...
"Fuck..." Bucky said with a slight shake to his head and a hard swallow.
Peter dropped his daughter on Mary Jane's lap before anything else could happen. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Ana was starting to look like she might spontaneously combust and burst into tears at the same time.
He stood up on shaky legs and got his balance before he turned to look at his sister only to get punched right in the face that sent him down on the ground.
He groaned and opened his eyes and saw that Ana was fuming at him. Looking down with angry tears running down her face.
"You asshole!!! You fucking knew this whole goddamn time!!" She spat at him. Peter reached up and wiped the blood off of his chin that was leaking out of his mouth before he looked around and saw that his whole family was tense, not sure if they should be worried or not.
He waved them off before he looked back into his sisters eyes which were a raging inferno of many emotions at the moment, "I did, and I'm sorry. I know that...doesn't help but...I really am...I probably deserved that."
"You're damn right you deserved it, you deserve more." She seethed, still glaring at her brother.
Gwen then decided to get involved. She walked over and got in the middle of her brother, who was still on the ground and her girlfriend, placing her hands on Ana's chest to try and stop her from lashing out.
"Alright, enough both of you. There are kids in the room." She hissed.
"Ahh, we're just messing around, they both know that. Some playful...fighting between siblings." Peter said, wincing when he pulled at the scaring in his right side when he tried to sit against the couch. "Isn't that right Mo? Princess?"
He got no answer though as Pepper was already taking them out of the room to play in a different room. He sighed and then started to pet Sonia when she came and laid down next to him.
"You don't understand what that would have done to me, do you?" Ana said to her brother, still trying to fight against her girlfriend.
"What would have happened to me if Gwen died and then you died right after that, hmm? I would have been left alone, without the two people who mean the world to me. What would I have done?" She said. Tears were basically pouring out of her eyes at this point but she couldn't help it.
"Ana..."
A sudden sob from Ana caught everyone's attention and had Peter instantly trying to get up from his position on the floor to get to her.
He pulled himself up and quickly made his way over to his sister. Well, as quick as his legs could carry him, he was more stumbling.
As soon as he got to his sister, he pulled her from Gwen's grip and cradled her head against his chest right underneath his chin.
The two assassin stood there for minutes just standing and holding each other, keeping the other close. Peter pulled back for a second to stare at her, "I promise, it'll take more than a bunch of magical stones to get ride of me. Trust me, you're stuck with me until the end of time sis." He smirked at her, getting a small watery chuckle from her in the process.
Ana gave him a smile before resting her forehead on his, both siblings closing their eyes to just take in the moment.
They were all safe...
They were all alive...
And their family was whole again...
Things were finally, starting to look up for them.
...or was it?
————————
A/N: Yes I know, I'm evil to leave it off here but I promise you, there's already a sequel in the making that will be featuring a certain Falcon and Winter Soldier and a few surprises in there as well that might make or break Peter. Guess you'll have to wait and see ;) the Sequel will be called...
'No One Can Run From Their Past...'