The world slowly stopped spinning around Tony quickly enough for him to land flat on his ass in the path of a moving car and register the headlights of said car barreling straight at him.
"Oh, shit!" he yelped, shutting his eyes and waiting for the moment of impact… that never came.
The car passed clean through him with an airy whoosh that he barely felt, leaving him with a tingly sensation before the next ones ran his intangible form over, over and over again.
"NYC drivers are the best, am I right?" Natasha drawled sarcastically before floating over to Tony and pulling him up.
"Of course." he deadpanned. They walked out of the street, under a nearby streetlight, and then stood there for a moment, taking the sight of each other in. Each looked like they did when they were alive, except more transparent despite the color and subtle solidness of their forms.
"Where even is this in the city?" Tony asked.
Natasha looked around. "Queens. The clock in that shop window over there says that it's 6, and I'm guessing that it's six in the evening."
Queens. Tony's chest tightened. Peter lives in Queens. I just have to find him, follow him, and find everyone else…
"Hey. Tony. I know that the spider kid lives around here, but we need a plan and we need to figure out what we need to do and what we can actually do before we run off and burn ourselves out. Remember, there's a cap on our available magic or whatever you want to call it." Natasha said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We'll get around to finding him, I promise. We just have to figure out where everyone else is, too."
Tony fixed his pleading brown eyes on her. "He's the closest one out of any of them. We can find him first. Please, Nat."
Her features softened. "Do you even know where to find him-"
"Good evening, New York City! Man, how I've missed you!" shouted a red and blue blur swinging by.
"That's him! Kid!" yelled Tony, sprinting through the air. "Peter, get your tiny, teenaged butt back here-"
"Tony, he can't hear you!" yelled Natasha, chasing after the other 'ghost' and catching him by the collar of his AC/DC shirt before dragging him to the top of a nearby building. "He can't hear you. As much as it hurts, we shouldn't do anything else before we find anyone else and see what we can do for them. Please."
Tony visibly deflated. "Sure. Fine. We can head upstate to headquarters. There's gotta be at least someone in the Avengers' Compound, or what's left of it." His agreement certainly didn't match the quiet misery in his tone or the empty look in his eyes, which followed the trail of webbing down the street.
"We'll see him again soon. I remember how to go there and flying is easier than I thought." Natasha said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You ready?"
"Yeah." he answered simply, and together they took off. Tony took to flying as a 'ghost' rather naturally. He whooped and soared too far ahead of Natasha's controlled gliding before circling back to her side, often with an impressive looking aerial maneuver. After all, he had spent years fighting in a flying metal suit, and it almost looked like he was still wearing one with the similar way he moved across the sky. Natasha, on the other hand, flew with fluid grace and ease that reflected years of discipline as a dancer. She guided Tony to the compound, seeing as there was no Friday to do the job for him, but he seemed to know which way they were going.
From both far away and above, the compound looked like an unfinished lego set rather than the equivalent of a demolished one that Tony was expecting. There was slow but thorough activity from construction crews below, who were set on clearing out the rubble and preserving as much as they could of the original structures before continuing the repairs.
"They've been busy. How long has it even been?" asked Tony.
"I don't know yet," admitted Natasha. "Let's see who's even down there and figure it out."
"So mission-oriented. I'm glad that you wound up sticking around me long enough to know the definition of fun," grumbled Tony.
The spy raised an eyebrow. "Clint did that first, and I'm more than confident in saying that our definitions of fun must be very different, Stark."
"Now there's the Natasha I've been waiting for this whole time!" he crowed. "C'mon, let's go see if Rhodey's around here somewhere. I promised him way back in college to haunt the living shit out of him if I died first."
Natasha smirked. "There's the Tony I've been waiting for this whole time. I want in on haunting the shit out of your best friend, too."
"Last one there's a rotten egg!" Tony shouted, diving down towards the residential area.
Natasha let out a low chuckle before plummeting after him.
Somewhere in Queens, less than an hour earlier…
Peter's spider-senses were giving off a small tingle as he swung through the city for the first time in what felt like ages. Normally, he would have ignored the sensation because his senses were always going off whenever he was out, giving him subtle signals that were almost purely instinctual to react to by now. But this sensation was different, as if he had a form of built-in radar he didn't even know about picking up a blip for the first time.
Wait, two tiny blips?
Under the mask, he frowned. The feeling faded almost as abruptly as it came, as if he was getting out of range way too quickly.
That's really weird. Maybe I should ask Mr. Stark about what I should do about new spider-sense feelings- oh. Right.
Peter teared up. Thank god his mask was so absorbent on the inside. He swung onto the side of a building and crawled to the roof. He couldn't sense any nearby security cameras or other threats to his secret identity, so he pulled the mask off and let the tears fall.
"Why did it have to be him? He was a good man that didn't deserve it. Just like Ben. And my parents, from what I hear and kinda remember. I want him back, just like anybody else with half a brain or heart, because he had both," Peter pleaded with the universe. "Just like they said- whatever it takes."
Fortunately, the universe had answered before he even asked.
Author's Note: I haven't been all that active as a writer for a while now, so my apologies for anybody trying to keep up with my other (rather messy) story. I don't recommend checking it out until I'm done, trust me. Hope you're all liking it so far, please review!