The realization slowly started to sink into Peter's being that he wasn't going to turn to ash like the others. He had survived, being among the half that Thanos had said would be spared. The others though, Dr. Strange, the Guardians, Mr. Stark...

Peter slumped back into a sitting position against the hard rock like surface of the planet, his thoughts swirling as tears began to swell within his eyes. They had had a chance...he had had the chance to stop this. The gauntlet had been so close; Peter could remember seeing Thanos's fingers start to show. One more good yank might've been all it took. If he had started pulling even a couple seconds sooner...

The tears suddenly came crashing down, bursting from his eyes and streaking down his cheeks as Peter began weeping bitterly. They were all gone because he failed.

"I...I'm so sorry Mr. Stark," Peter mumbled through heavy sobs, "so sorry."

He had failed like this once before, and he'd sworn that it wouldn't happen again. He'd been irresponsible then, focusing only on himself, and it too had caused him to lose someone he'd cared about. With great power comes great responsibility; that's what he'd learned that day. Yet today he'd been responsible to the best he felt he could be. As he had told Mr. Stark when he stowed away on the ship:

"There can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no neighborhood."

Whatever was going on, it had seemed like an all-hands-on deck situation, so Peter had hopped on board to do his part. Sure, he wasn't as strong as the Hulk or as powerful as Thor, but he felt he still had to do something. He had tried to do the right thing...but the situation turned out even worse than that day over two years prior that started him on this path in the first place.

Now half of the universe was gone.

That realization only made his tears come even faster, the weight of his failure making his heart feel as though it had stopped. By now, Peter's emotions were all over the place; his sobs were getting so hard due to his anguish that he had a hard time catching his breath. When he did, his anger lead him to cry out, venting to the air and the desolate planet around him. He kept this up until he had no air left in his lungs and no more tears to cry. By that time, he didn't have a clue how long he'd been like that; it could've been a few minutes or several hours. However long it was, it had done nothing to remove the thoughts that plagued his mind.

Half of all life in the universe was gone.

Wives lost husbands, and vice versa.

Children lost their moms or dads. Maybe both.

Peter collapsed on his side, the weight of these things bearing down on his soul. It felt like a weight was chained to his heart, dragging him down altogether. He had no energy and no words to speak; even if he did, no one was there to listen. He laid there for a while, lacking any motivation to get up. What was the point of it anyway? When the time had come for his number to be called, he couldn't deliver. Mr. Stark should've never...

"Make it home, kid."

The man's last words came ringing afresh in Peter's mind. If there was one thing that he had been able to see was important to his mentor, it was home. Not his house, or even his workshop, but the woman he loved: Pepper Potts. Mr. Stark had never explicitly talked with Peter about what she meant to him, but he didn't have to. The few times he had seen the two of them together, all he had to do was look at the man's eyes when he looked at her.

She was his whole world.

Peter began to think about those in his world. He thought of May, the woman who had raised him most of his life, including the last two years by herself. When she found out he was dressing up in red and blue spandex and fighting crime in his spare time (or regular time), she was far from happy at first, but eventually, she had come to understand why he felt he had to do this, even saying she was proud of the man he was growing into. Granted, she probably would never let him out of her sight after this, but right now, that didn't sound too bad.

He also thought of Ned, his best friend since elementary school. They started off as two kids just trying to survive their school years, but they eventually came to be the brothers neither of them had. Ned was the first non-Avenger to find out about Peter's identity as Spider-Man and he had embraced it from that time on, all be it with a never-ending list of questions. To be fair, Ned had also come to figure out when to give Peter his space after a rougher ordeal, and he knew his friend would do so here.

Those two could both still be waiting for him, unless...no, he couldn't let himself think of the possibility. The thought of seeing them again was the only thing that was finally allowing even the smallest bit of motivation to return to his body. Slowly, Peter began to force himself up, keeping the images of his loved ones in the front of his mind. He sat up, immediately putting a hand against his knee while placing his other hand against the ground, slowly pushing himself up to a standing position. Finally, he made it to where he was on his own two feet.

But now what?

Peter decided to head to the ship he had arrived in with Mr. Stark and Dr. Strange first. He didn't exactly have much reason for confidence in driving the massive donut shaped vehicle given how the last time went, but he had to start somewhere. He trudged on, fighting the still fresh thoughts that waged war on his mind and soul, trying to keep the images of May and Ned in the forefront. He tried to imagine the relief that would be on their faces when they saw he was okay, the hugs they would surely embrace him in...maybe a scolding or two from May about going to space without telling her too. Oh well, he would deal with that when the time came.

After a while, Peter finally made it to the top of a hill where the ship should've been resting just below, only for his heart to sink at the sight before him: the once tall, round ship was destroyed, its parts scattered to the four winds, some borderline unrecognizable.

Duh! Peter thought, chastising himself internally for the getting his hopes up on this idea. This was well within the vicinity of the meteor shower, when Thanos brought the moon down on them all. Nothing could've made it out intact from that! Peter kicked a nearby rock in frustration; he wasn't about to give up, but what other possibilities were there? He could look and see if he could get some old ship just lying around somewhere to start, but from how Thanos talked earlier, it sounded as if this planet had been abandoned for a long time now. That wasn't likely to yield any kind of results, and the Guardians came on...

Wait, how did the Guardians arrive there?

Peter stopped to think; it wasn't long after they landed (okay, crash landed) that the Guardians came on board and attacked them, so they had to have arrived before they did. Obviously, they had to have come on their own ship, right?

Or maybe they used some kind of portal fast travel device that vanished like everything else on their persons...

Peter shook the thought out of his head. The last thing he needed was another thought to get him even more down than he already felt. The Guardians (he still didn't know why they called themselves that) came on a ship of their own and it was clear of the raining destruction that was an alien using magic stones to pull a moon out of the atmosphere and rain it down on them...

Okay, remembering that didn't help much either.

Peter scanned the area from his high viewpoint but saw nothing that looked intact in any way whatsoever. Trying to keep what little hope he had alive despite the discouraging sight, he began his descent down the hill, his nimble nature helping him navigate the ledges well. Once he made it down to the base, he realized he had no idea which direction to go, so he kept going in the direction he already was. The way he figured, the ship likely wasn't too far away, he just needed to pick the right direction.

He continued for a while, glancing at his surroundings only to find nothing but scraps and heaps of destroyed materials everywhere he looked. Eventually, he gave up on that direction, shifted at about a ninety-degree angle and began moving another direction, hoping for more luck.

It took about a while of searching, but eventually, Peter did find what could be a functioning ship, or at least one that wasn't torn to shreds, sitting in a more abandoned area. It was just outside the zone where the meteor shower had hit. He only hoped that his luck would hold up and that it he would find it still functioning.

He raced towards it, fighting his tiredness from the battle as well as the fact that he had missed at least one meal, possibly two that day, until he arrived. Thankfully the entry ramp was still down, so Peter made his way on board. He got in to find that it was more spacious on the inside than he would've guessed from looking at it on the outside. Still, Peter didn't linger much on his path to the cockpit. Within seconds he was there and realized something important.

He had no idea how to fly this thing.

"Okay, okay," he said, trying to keep his spirits up, "you can figure this out." He decided to call upon some things his Uncle Ben had shown him from his time as a plane mechanic in the Air Force. Granted, Peter had never gotten to see the ins and outs of it all in person, but Ben had looked up and shown him specs and described in detail how different things worked to make planes operational. Though the ship he was on now was likely very different in at least a few ways, it had to be at least similar enough on some fundamental levels.

Peter moved to perform a more in-depth survey of the craft that was likely his only hope of getting off this desolate world and back home. He saw a couple of handles on the right side in the front that likely controlled thrust as well as direction. That was the easy part; the hard part was deducing what all the buttons were for. He poured over them carefully, only to find there was no writing or indicators of any kind that could tell him what purpose each served. Still, he could make educated guesses on a couple of them with the knowledge Ben had given him.

He took a seat and decided to try his luck a little. Strapping himself in just in case, Peter pressed a green button in position that looked like it could be the ignition. However, nothing happened.

"Hmm," he mumbled, looking inquisitively at some of the other buttons. He found a blue one that could be it, so he decided to try it. There was no ignition in response, but he did hear the ramp closing behind him, so there was at least something that was done right. He looked again, figuring he had to be on the right path and the ignition should be close to the button he pressed for the ramp.

Peter opted to try a red one a couple of spaces up, almost holding his breath in the hopeful anticipation that he might finally have guessed right this time. Sure enough, the engine began to roar.

"YES!" Peter shouted, but just as he did, the engine fizzled out.

"Oh c'mon!" he yelled, pressing the button again, but to no avail; he couldn't get more than a faint attempt at starting up again. Unbuckling himself, Peter decided to try and see if he could figure out what was wrong with the engine. He went to another room and found what looked like a giant touch screen. It was currently set as if it had been charting a course somewhere, likely to the planet he was on now. Perhaps he could use it to run a diagnostic or something.

Reaching out his finger slowly, Peter touched the screen, causing the image to pop up in front of him instead. He reached for it again, swiping to the right with his pointer finger. This time he saw something that read "POTENTIAL CLIENTS" and below it a list of names of groups or individuals, though he couldn't be sure, since he didn't recognize anything he saw.

Man, who are these guys? Peter thought.

He swiped again, finally coming to something that, while useful, was also rather discouraging.

REPAIRS NEEDED.

The list wasn't extensive per se, but it was still enough that it would probably take some time, especially given that one thing on the list was to check on some concerns related to the engine.

Bottom line, if Peter was going to get home, he had some work to do.

So, some ground things I want to do for the sake of some context regarding this story that I probably should have supplied you all with in chapter 1:

First off, this is NOT AN ENDGAME STORY. In other words, don't get your hopes up for any of The Vanished to return by the end. This is a story of Peter dealing with loss and failure.

Second, this is probably my most brutal story yet. Peter is going to go through the ringer, especially emotionally. Make no mistake, there will be some moments of levity here and there, but at its core, this isn't going to be a pleasant read.

Third, in Infinity War, they say two years have passed since Civil War, so basically I'm acting as if Peter is 17 and in senior year unlike what we know from Far From Home, where he's 16. All that to say, he's just a tad aged up, but not much.

Fourth, don't worry, there will be Spideychelle, but it will take some time to get to. Hang in there.

Anyway, hope you guys continue to enjoy!

Continuing to pray for you all. Stay safe and healthy!

"Elijah was afraid and ran for his life..." 1 Kings 19:3-9