Chapter Seven: Ned's Sacrifice
Posted: April 17, 2019
Author's Note: So, I really wrote myself into a corner with the time loop. I'm not entirely happy with my solution and it would be easy to just stop here and wait a few weeks for Endgame to hit theaters. But… although this story was begun out of my needing a "fix-it" for Infinity War, I do have a clear way of how I want it to end and want to see my story completed. So, thanks for reading this unbelievable story.
Things were never as simple as Miles wanted them to be. First, he had forgotten he had a test in world history, and second, he had snuck into the chem lab after school to make web fluid and had managed to create a concoction that exploded out of the beaker. Fine web tendrils hung from all over the ceiling in a bizarre haphazard way that mostly resembled Spanish Moss. The worst part was that Miles was currently dangling from some of these webs and the more he struggled, the more webs attached to him. The burner under the beaker was still on and as Miles watched, the remaining liquid evaporated out of the beaker.
Unfortunately, the nearby web tendrils overheated and started to catch fire. Panicking, Miles aimed with his bound up hands as much as he could, shooting more webs to cover up the fires and stop airflow. It didn't work very well, but before Miles could do anything more, the sprinklers turned on and rained stale, smelly water down on Miles and the fires.
The fire alarm went off, and Miles, still stuck like a fly in his own webbing, needed to get out before anyone saw him as Spider-man.
He struggled and struggled against the webbing but he wasn't breaking free.
His heart leapt into his chest as the door was yanked open. A firefighter stomped into the room in his heavy suit, but relaxed when he saw there was no fire. He looked over at Miles, a thick netting of webbing separating them. "You okay, kid?"
"I'm fine," Miles gulped.
"What happened?"
"I – I was just, you know, doing homework."
"It's not safe to work in a lab by yourself." He pulled his radio off his belt and spoke into it, "This is Sam. Fire's out; it was in the chem lab. I need you to cut off the gas, though, we have a leaking Bunsen burner."
"We'll get onto that." The static reply muffled by the sound of the sprinklers.
The firefighter fingered the delicate web strands in his thickly gloved fingers. "This stuff looks like Spider-man's." He turned to Miles. "Are you Spider-man, kid?"
"Ummmm." Miles squirmed some and more webbing glued itself to his hands.
"What exactly were you doing?"
Miles was silent until it got unbearably uncomfortable. "Tryin' to make web fluid."
"Nifty."
"Yeah."
"Then you are Spider-man."
"I…"
"Or not, based on the state of this webbing," the fireman said, strumming the webbing.
Miles sighed, "I'm not like, you know, the first. The first Spider-man."
The fireman looked disappointed. "So, he is gone."
"Yeah."
"But you're going on, in his name?"
"I'm trying," Miles sighed. The fireman then went about the lab, looking for something to dissolve the webbing. At first he tried acetone, vinegar, and peroxide.
Miles heard a noise and turned to see his principal peeking in through the door.
Miles' face burned.
It was only 30 minutes later that Miles worried as he heard the boots in the hallway. Loud footfalls like a police officer. Then the man came inside the room. It was Officer Davis.
AKA Miles' dad.
"What is this?" his dad asked, hands on his hips.
"Dad, what are you doing here? I thought you had patrol," Miles said.
"This is patrol: stopping you when you get into trouble," Miles' dad said.
"Um, this is exactly what it looks like?" Miles shrugged.
"You tell me," his dad said.
I can't tell him. Miles thought. Because if I do, he won't accept me anymore.
"…Because this," his dad continued. "Looks like Spider-man's webbing. Are you working for him?"
"No," Miles said, staring through the webbing at his feet.
"Did he threaten you?"
Miles' jaw dropped a bit in shock, "No. I – I never got to meet him."
"That's good, you don't belong doing nothing for one of them," he sighed. "Then why do you have his webbing?" The fireman had left to write his fire incident report.
"Um, dad?"
"This can't be good," his dad sighed.
"You're going to find it out anyway, with the report," Miles said, thinking of the fireman.
"Surprise me."
"I'm Spider-man."
"No you ain't."
"Yes-I-am."
"Miles, spiders don't get caught in their own web. Tell me the truth."
"This is the truth."
"You've been doing drugs," he looked away. "You're not Spider-man."
Miles struggled further against the webbing, it did seem to be loosening a bit. "I wouldn't do that. Why can't you believe me!"
"Because I've seen it. The Mutant-growth-hormone."
"What's that?" Miles asked.
People take the MGH and for a little bit they have superpowers, but it trashes them. Ruins their metabolism. They waste away as their bodies continue to burn off calories until there is nothing left of them."
"I, but I didn't even know about that."
"That's because I didn't want you to hear about it." His dad rubbed his hand down his worried face.
"Dad, I didn't take anything. I've had these powers since before mom died," Miles said.
"I'm still gonna have to file a report about you trashin' the chem lab."
"I know, dad," Miles said carefully to avoid sounding annoyed.
Miles' dad left to presumably write a report. Miles heard a buzzing noise like an insect flying through the room. It sounded like it was right above his head. He hoped that it wouldn't land on him, flies were the worst, but it sounded like it was circling his head like a mini helicopter.
It would be a pain to feel a fly crawling in his hair while his hands were webbed. He started blowing, trying to create an air current to hopefully urge the fly away.
"Hey, I'm trying to fly here!" a tiny voice called out to him.
"Aauh!" Miles jumped. "I didn't know I had the power to talk to bugs!"
"No that's me," the voice replied.
"Uh, uh, I'm Spider-man, and you aren't. You better stay away, nasty fly!"
"No, I mean, I can talk to bugs, well, at least ants. Circle the wagons, Antony!" The speaker flew into view and Miles peered at the tiny man riding a flying ant inches from his face. "I'm Scott Lang. I'm Ant-man!"
"What! What are you doing here?"
"I am your conscience."
"My conscience looks real funny."
"Okay," the Ant-man said. "I'm not your conscience. I've been following you all day."
"Are you one of the good guys or the bad guys?"
"Depends on who you ask. But I'm working for Tony now and he told me to recruit you."
"Look, I'm sick of telling people this, but I don't do drugs and I don't care that you have a great job with Tony. I'm not working for the mafia – I – I'm not even Italian!"
"Miles, that's not it at all."
"Who's Tony? Your mob boss?"
"Tony Stark, you know, Ironman."
"You mean the Avengers."
"Look, we're gonna take down Thanos, you in?"
"I've been wanting to take down Thanos my entire life."
"Good," Ant-man said, then his ant flew over Miles' head. Suddenly, a disc hit his head and the room started to distort… No… Not distort, grow bigger. The walls were expanding and moving further and further away. His hands and feet slipped out of webbing and he landed with a BANG on the linoleum floor.
He stood dizzily. Now he was the size of an ant, or as he preferred: a spider!
"Run to the window, Miles!" Ant-man cheered, whooping as Antony soared through the chaos of broken webs dangling from the ceiling of the chem lab.
Miles began running along the tiles. It took a few minutes but then he was clear of the webs. Ant-man dropped another disc on his head. This time he grew back to his normal size. "Couldn't you make me taller?" Miles joked.
"No, time for that, we need to catch the train to the Avengers' compound."
"Um, okay, but I need to tell my dad," Miles said.
"What if he says, no?" Ant-man said, "It seems like you've been lying to him for a while about being Spider-man."
Miles thought then hesitantly replied, "I just, I don't feel good about going away without telling him."
"Okay, maybe if I come with you," Ant-man said. Suddenly, he jumped off his ant, pressed a button on his belt and grew to be a six-foot tall man.
Miles stepped back because he was suddenly in this man's personal space.
They slipped out the back door to the chem lab and Miles led Ant-man to the principal's office where his dad had gone.
"Um… Dad." Miles peered around the door.
"Good, that webbing dissolved faster than Captain Watanabe estimated it would. You okay?"
"Yeah, actually Ant-man helped me out of it."
"Ant-man?"
"He means me," Ant-man said, coming around the corner.
"Did you get Miles into this mess?"
"No, I'm here for the Avengers."
"Why?" Davis asked.
"Because we need your help," Ant-man said. "We think there's a way we can defeat Thanos and get the gauntlet from him. We hope that the gauntlet can bring the people back to life that Thanos killed."
"Why would the gauntlet do that?" Davis said, wearing his most skeptical look.
"Because it had the power to kill them, so it must have the reverse power as well." Ant-man grinned.
"Your logic is betting on unsubstantiated reversible contingencies," Davis said.
"Well, if we didn't hope for something then we wouldn't get anywhere," Ant-man returned.
"What do you want?" Davis asked.
"To gather all the superheroes to beat Thanos," Ant-man said.
"Let me ask you one question," Davis said. "What happened to the other Spider-man?"
"He was turned to dust," Ant-man said.
"I've already lost my wife, don't make me lose my son too. Don't. Just leave," He said, fire burning in his eyes. Ant-man met his eyes and then he walked away, leaving them alone.
"Miles," His dad said, he stood up and he put his arms around Mile's shoulders and leaned his chin over Mile's shoulder so that Miles' wouldn't see the tears standing in his eyes.
〇
Nebula bristled as sand scratched at her scalp as the dust storm blew it irritatingly at all the places where her flesh melded to her metal body. She was tracking her father. She spat on the ground, trying to get the grit off her tongue. Although she hated her part cyber body, her radar had allowed her to follow Thanos unnoticed and she had already found paydirt. It seemed the gauntlet was corroding. Nebula had noticed the damage the first time she saw it since the dust had settled. It's settings were cracking and she had already picked up the power-stone. She only had to keep waiting until the rest of the stones slipped from Thanos' gauntlet as well.
〇
Gamora's patience was stretching farther than she felt was possible. She looked at the coffee table Thanos had conjured using the reality-stone. Briefly she wondered why it was called the reality-stone. It changed reality, so maybe it was an artificial reality or an augmented reality. Yes, augmented-reality-stone sounded much more accurate. She knew she couldn't just take the stone from her dad, but maybe, maybe she could break it's illusions by confronting it with the truth.
"So, I see you were lying when you said there was no one else to talk to," Thanos said. "Now that those flies are gone we can get back to having our chat. Sit down, Gamora."
"Why should I? That chair is not even real." Gamora rolled her eyes.
"It is as real as anything here," Thanos said. "This is, after all, all in my mind. This world is where I come to see you. It is your world." He picked up a sandwich from the conjured coffee table and took a bite.
"Even if I am in your mind, you cannot deny rationality," Gamora hissed. "Your delusions have broken the universe to its atoms, but you are no closer to understanding how it is made. You take and you steal and you claim you are merciful to let the broken shards you left behind live."
"I am merciful. The half that survived will inherit their planets from those they lost. They will miss those that they lost and treat their fellow survivors better."
"But in fifty years the population will double again, you will snap your fingers again, and these survivors will give up; they'll lose hope."
"What would you have me to do?" the Titan said, swallowing his sandwich.
"I know you remember your planet Titan, but most planets are not overpopulated. Even if they were, it would be better if you made more planets. If that gauntlet truly makes you a god, it should give you that power."
"I suppose that you do have a point there."
Gamora bit her tongue because despite how much she hated Thanos, she still felt pride in his praise. She wished his words would hurt. At least she knew how to deal with that.
〇
"Great, we're in a time loop," Ned said.
"I think you said that before…," Peter said.
"Well, that would make sense since time is repeating!" Ned said.
The two teens had stopped at the entrance to the time-stone's reclusive cave hideout. They had to admit that they were stumped as to what to do.
"What if we dug a tunnel and came at it from the other side?" Peter asked. "Maybe time would only go forwards then and we'd find out that we had already won the stone."
"That would take way too long! You're not Ironman or the Hulk," Ned said.
"Ned, as long as we get the stone, we've got all the time in the world!"
"Okay," Ned sighed. Peter leapt up the chasm and began to look for another way into the cavern.
"Hey, Ned!" he called down after about thirty minutes.
"Yes!" Ned yelled, his voice echoing up the cliff walls.
"This mesa up here goes on for miles and miles. The chasm we found is more like the Grand Canyon. I'm coming back down."
"'kay," Ned said. He watched closely as Peter swung down the canyon wall with more ease than a zip-lining person.
"So, how do we defeat something that changes time?" Peter asked.
"In theory, we find something that doesn't change with time," Ned replied.
They looked up and down the canyon. It mirrored the canyons they had seen in pictures before (neither of them were rich enough to have made it out West to see the canyons). Layers upon layers reached into the dark sky that lay underground from whatever landscape Thanos had dropped them off of into the hinterlands of his soul. The layers in real life would have indicated the passage of time. Canyons were seen as something very permanent, but in truth, the only reason they could be enjoyed was because the landscape had been eroded to expose them.
Time could not heal all wounds if it caused them in the first place.
But here, perhaps because a desire to preserve things, even broken things, that the time-stone had hidden itself in a cave.
"But we're in Thanos' mind. I don't think we'll find anything here that can't be changed," Peter said.
"Three-point-one-four," Ned said.
"Math?" Peter said. "That could work."
"Well, unless Thanos' mind runs on binary instead of decimals," Ned said. "Do aliens count by tens?"
"He has ten fingers," Peter said.
Ned skipped to the cave entrance, "That's good enough. Let's go!"
"So what are we supposed to do, meditate on the number Pi?" Peter said. "That seems Dr. Strange-ish."
"When we get to the room, we'll say Pi aloud to the stone," Ned said.
"This is really cheesy," Peter mumbled as they walked along the cave, soft footfalls echoing on the floor.
Just before they stepped into the time-stone room, Ned held out his left arm. He nodded.
"Three-point-one-four," they both chanted, as they stepped into the room. Green light flashed before them and they were instantly at the mouth of the cave again.
"No…," Ned pouted.
"It must run on binary," Peter said. "Makes sense if he numbers everyone a one or a zero."
"Maybe it's more philosophical."
"What's more philosophical than math?" Peter asked.
"Well, what's never going to change in your life?" Ned said.
Peter thought, he'd lost a lot: his parents, Uncle Ben, Aunt May, earth, his life, and before then he'd lost his ability to be a "normal" kid. He really hadn't realized just how normal he was until he got spider-powers and was torn between doing what would help other people and following his science passions. Yeah, being an orphan had been hard and kept him from having a normal life, but it wasn't as bad as if his parents had abandoned him or something.
But normal people were overrated. Peter had read somewhere that if there was an emergency, statistically only one in ten or twenty people would try to help. He'd been trying to be that person who helped… ever since he lost Uncle Ben because he was too lazy to stop a criminal.
Then Uncle Ben had forgiven him, he didn't say, "Oh I forgive you because you're Spider-man and have helped a lot of people." Instead Uncle Ben had said, "I forgave you a long time ago."
And that's what it must be. That would never change. Peter ran through the cave with Ned clamoring behind him. He reached the room and without stopping he leaped into it and caught the time-stone from off its pedestal.
He felt it ticking in his hands.
"You, you did it!" Ned said.
〇
And on a faraway planet, Nebula found another stone.
〇
"Aah! What are you doing on my nightstand?" Miles could barely keep from screaming as he opened his eyes after hearing a scampering noise by his bed.
Ant-man had shrunk again, this time to the size of a mouse, and was sitting cross-legged on the corner of Miles' nightstand. "Simple. I followed you home, thanks to Antony."
"Look, you're going to get me in big trouble," Miles said.
"I'll try not to," Ant-man said. "What we need to do is prove to your dad that you're a superhero, then maybe he'll let you help us."
"Uh-huh. You don't know my dad," Miles said.
"I'm a dad, I know more about being a dad than you know about being a dad," Ant-man replied.
"But he's my dad. So shouldn't I be the expert?"
"Well, like father like son, I suppose. I wouldn't know because I have a daughter."
Miles looked at Ant-man in surprise.
"Had a daughter," he clarified.
Miles swallowed, "Well there is something."
"Something… something like…?"
"I saw this guy called the Sandman. He was made completely out of sand, but he said he used to be human! This Chitauri stuff had exploded around him and turned his body into sand. But he was still like a human. It was so weird and would be cool if he wasn't so depressed," Miles said.
"The Sandman," Ant-man said. "I think I heard his name on the radio, but I'm a Californian and he was in New York, so I didn't really read up on it."
"You don't read the news?" Miles asked, temporarily shocked because he was now in a high school obsessed with journalism.
Ant-man just looked at him and it was the first time Miles had noticed the bags under the "gung-ho" enthusiastic man's eyes.
"I think there's a scientific secret," Miles said. "Maybe we could bring him to the Avengers, and they could find out a way to cure him, and we could bring everyone back to life."
"That's…," Ant-man had an extremely skeptical look on his face, but he traded it for a more hopeful one. "That's good. Let's find him and bring him to the Avengers."
"I already tried to stop him before, but it is hard fighting sand," Miles said.
"That's okay, I have a plan." Ant-man grinned.
"Okay," Miles said.
"Now, we need to figure out where he was seen last." Ant-man and Miles immediately pulled out their phones and started searching for the Sandman.
"Well, no sightings in the last 24 hours," Ant-man said.
"The last reported sighting was a week ago," Miles said. "By the Manhattan Marina."
"That place is pretty crowded," Ant-man said. "I doubt he'd stay there for long. Hold on a second."
"What're you doing?"
"Hacking the satellite feed," he said slowly, immersed in the screen. "If I just compare these beaches..."
Miles looked over his shoulder, but it was hard to make out anything on the tiny phone screen Ant-man held. The fact that Ant-man's phone had shrunk to the size of a grain of corn did not help either.
"This, this isn't working," Ant-man muttered twenty minutes later.
"What do you mean?" Miles asked, looking up from the ebook he had started to read on his phone while waiting.
"I can't really tell a discernable difference in the sand."
"Well, the Sandman did seem to be a master of disguise," Miles said. "He can look like a person, but he can also become a completely flat layer of sand."
"Okay, then, time for one more method," Ant-man said, leaning back against Mile's nightstand's lamp and closing his eyes, his hands pressed a button on his helmet.
He did this for a number of minutes.
"There, I've contacted all the ants in New York City. If they've seen the Sandman, we'll be able to follow them."
"What do we do now?" Miles asked.
"Well, we wait for a mass of ants to fly in your window and take us to the Sandman."
"But how're they going to take me?"
Ant-man pulled a tiny Frisbee out of his utility belt and threw it at Miles. It hit Miles in the nose, and Miles felt very dizzy. It was a good thing he was lying in bed. But the bed seemed to grow and grow and Miles was slipping under the covers. "AAH!" he shouted, muffled by the comforter as he stood up, waving his arms and running to the side of bed. He gasped for breath and stared at his room. Ant-man was now a giant and he was now the size of a spider! Ant-man fumbled at a switch on his belt and then he shrank to the size of an ant.
"What! What did you do to me?" Miles shouted.
"Sshh!" Ant-man said. "Do you want to wake up your parents? The ants can't carry us if we're too big."
"But…I'm so tiny I could… I could be eaten by a bird!" Miles said.
"Then you punch your way out of its stomach!" Ant-man said.
"Eww!" Miles said. "Are you speaking from experience?"
"Here," Ant-man said, handing Miles a disc. "Put this in your pocket. If you need to go back to your regular size just pull it out and hit yourself with the edge. Okay?"
Miles took the disk. They walked over to the windowsill. It's weird to be tiny. Miles thought. He stared at the corner of the windowsill. Part of him wanted to try to put a web in the corner. He set to work, jumping back and forth until a web was in place. Well, it looked like a web, but Miles knew that it was unlikely to catch anything. Real spiders had two types of webbing: sticky webbing that formed the net of the web and non-sticky webbing that formed wires for the spider to walk on. Miles sighed and looked at the streetlights that shone in the fog.
It was some time later that a cloud of ants buzzed into view. They landed on the windowsill. Some of them were tangled in Miles' web, and Miles walked over and untangled them. Ant-man climbed on Antony and Miles followed suit. Soon, the ants had taken off. Flying on an ant was a much smoother ride than web-slinging but it was also much slower. Miles could actually take in the sights and hear the sounds of the city. He had enhanced hearing, thanks to his superpowers, so he could often hear at least some while web-slinging, but the nice thing was that when he rode the ants he didn't have the force of the airstream beating his eardrums. He didn't have to look for the next place to shoot his web, or fling himself higher into the air by pulling hard on the web-lines. He looked down at the cars and the people that were still walking the Brooklyn streets at night. Then, they were flying over the East River. The smell of the salt-water wafted up to his face.
They flew North, small barges and boats winded up and down the river. He felt free like it was just him and the big night sky. Maybe this was how the Avenger's felt when they flew their quinjet. Ant-man looked back at him and gave a thumbs up. Miles looked at the other ants, their wings were beating so fast that he could barely see them. He blinked and saw that even more groups of ants were joining them. Ahead, Ant-man was putting his hands on his helmet again, signaling more ants. Half a mile later, the ants were like a large cloud.
They landed on Roosevelt Island on a sandbar and Miles got off the winged ant. Ant-man threw another disk at Miles and Miles kept his balance this time. Ant-man grew too.
"So, where's the Sandman?" Miles asked.
"Well, according to my ants, he was right under our feet," Ant-man said.
"But," Miles said. "I don't feel anything with my spider-sense."
"Spider-sense?"
"I have a danger sense," Miles explained.
"Awesome," Ant-man said.
"Last time, when I stepped on the Sandman, my spider-sense went off," Miles said.
The ground shifted under their feet.
"NOW!" Ant-man yelled, putting his hands on his helmet. The cloud of ants swooped down and each picked up a grain of sand. Ant-man pulled out a jar that grew bigger to the size of a large dog crate.
The Sandman was much smaller, now that most of his sand had been taken away, he started to run away but Ant-man chased him and threw the jar over him.
"Caught you!" Ant-man said.
"Let me go!" the Sandman said. "You're not the police."
"This is for your own good!" Ant-man said, shaking the jar. "We'll take you to the Avengers."
"My life is terrible enough already. Let me go!" the Sandman said.
"You don't get it." Miles said. "We're going to cure you."
Ant-man pressed a button on his helmet. "Hi, Cap, just letting you know that the new Spider-man and I caught the Sandman….Yeah, we'll bring him right in as soon as I remember where I parked my van… Hey, Manhattan is a confusing place. Took forever to find a place I could park the van that I can actually afford. I'd just ride the ants upstate but they aren't good for long distances… Yeah… Okay…'bye!"
"Miles, Cap says to thank you!" Ant-man said.
"Like Captain America?"
"Yeah, kid."
"Wow! Wait, wait a second – ," Miles said.
"Wha-?"
"You ain't trying to involve me in anything, you know, wrong?"
"No, of course not," Ant-man said.
"Because Captain America is a war criminal," Miles said. "My dad is a cop, I can't be doing anything illegal or he'll turn me in."
"Look, Miles, I'm not saying we're always right, but we are doing the right thing here. The Sandman has a warrant out for larceny so we won't get in trouble for capturing him. Cap and I have both been pardoned. Bottom line, Miles, just stay on Tony Stark's good side and you'll be okay."
"Uh. Okay," Miles replied.
〇
Gamora reached back for her chair in shock as she took a look at Thanos' gauntlet. She could now see that two stones were missing: the Power Stone and the Time Stone. She felt the power stone still glowing in her palm. Thankfully, Thanos hadn't noticed her shock yet and apparently hadn't seen the need to inspect his gauntlet recently. Maybe they could do it. The Reality Stone would be the one she tried for next.
"Father," She said.
"Yes?"
"How can you keep this up?"
"Keep what up?"
"This fake reality," she said, looking at the plants and the trees that spread away in the darkness in their universally identical shapes.
"This is how the world should be," Thanos said.
"But you are lying to yourself," she said, looking at the flickering campfire by their coffee table.
Thanos looked into the darkness, and it shuddered. A bright orange light flooded the place for a second and words in a language that Gamora had never heard surrounded them.
"What!" Thanos started, he looked at Gamora and he looked at his gauntlet. "YOU, YOU STOLE THEM!" he yelled. He grabbed Gamora by her left hand shook her in the air, as if he thought he the Time and Power stones would fall out of her pockets. He could not see the purple gleam of the Power Stone she symbolically held in her hand.
"NO! OW!" she screamed, kicking him uselessly in the chest. "How could I steal them? I can't even touch the physical world!" Reality was shaking now, a multitude of landscapes assailed their vision, one second they were in a roiling ocean. The next rain poured down in oversized drops from the heavens. Thanos then shook her by her feet, but he never found the stones. He snapped his fingers and spirited himself away, leaving Gamora alone in a cascade of changing realities.
〇
Ned and Peter dropped to the ground as the canyon they were inside turned into a hurricane ridden beach.
"What's happening?" Peter screamed.
"It's reality!" Ned shouted. "It's changing. Gamora must be fighting Thanos!"
"I hope she wins soon!" Peter said, grabbing onto Ned with all spider-strength in his right arm and clinging to the ground with the rest of his limbs.
"Wait, it's breaking the illusion!" Ned said. "The Soul Stone is right here! We can win over the Soul Stone right here!"
"Great," Peter grunted.
"Soul Stone!" Ned yelled.
"What is it?"
"Aah! Ned, that's the Red Skull!" Peter shouted, looking at the weird skinless man that appeared before them.
"What? How did you get here? How are you even alive?" Ned asked.
"Now is not the time or place. You wanted to vin the Soul Stone, yes?" the Red Skull said quickly.
"Yes," Ned said.
"You must promise to give up the thing you love the most," the Red Skull said.
"Okay, yeah, sure!" Ned said.
"That is not the typical response."
"I mean it, we have to undo what Thanos has done and we have to beat him," Ned said.
"Very vell then," the Red Skull said. He clapped his hands once and looked up at the glowing orange light that spread through the breaks in the sequential landscapes that roared through their view.
Ned looked up as he was pulled into the air, he looked over to Peter, but Peter was gone.
"What? Where did he go?" Ned yelled.
"It turns out that you love Spider-man the most!" the Red Skull looked amused. "But he is already dead. Therefore, I took him away from you by sending him back to life!"
"What?" Ned screamed over the roar of a tornado.
"But don't worry, in order to really possess the Soul Stone, you must be alive to hold it! So, I am sending you back alive too!"
"Um, thanks!" Ned said, before the crazy world in Thanos' mind vanished from his sight forever.
〇
Elsewhere in the universe, Gamora woke up alive, as Thanos' sacrifice was rejected from the Soul Stone.
〇
Peter moaned. There was something incredibly hard that he was lying on and a strange feeling in his chest. He gasped and a cardboard box toppled off his chest. His eyes popped open and he reflexively jumped onto the ceiling, now identifying the funny feeling in his chest as his heartbeat. Somehow, he was alive.
He looked around. The room he was in looked exactly like his old room in the apartment, but in one corner there was a baby in a crib and all his things were gone. He crawled over the ceiling to a corner where he'd stapled a poster to the wall and the staple holes were still there. Peter had woken up exactly where his old bed had been but he knew he shouldn't have.
He'd been on a field trip, then he went to fight aliens in Central Park, he stowed away on a spaceship, and then… no. No. No-no-no-no-no! He had died, and something had happened that he couldn't really remember, and now somehow he was alive.
Maybe he was going crazy.
People didn't just come back from the dead. Not his parents, not Uncle Ben.
He dropped to the floor and scrunched his knees to his chest, back against the wall, and the Iron-spider suit's helmet materialized over his head. "Karen," He said.
"Hi, Peter," the suit lady said.
"Where am I?"
"You're in your apartment."
"But there's a baby."
"Hold on, I'm going to update my databases…," a few minutes later her voice came back. "Your apartment is now rented by new occupants."
"Karen?"
"Yes, Peter?"
"Was I dead?"
"Yes. Stark even listed your name on his private wall of remembrance."
Great, he muttered ironically to himself, "Can you call him for me?"
"No, because you are dead."
"Karen, I gotta say I really appreciate you, but I'm not sure you really understand some concepts." It wasn't the funniest joke, but he needed it, needed it to have something that made sense in this whole mess.
He breathed in the air in the apartment, it smelled like home, but it didn't – this was a family that didn't burn the food and used Tide detergent instead of Downey. Aunt May must've moved. His best bet at this point was to see if he could find Ned.
Peter opened the window and leaped into the fresh air. The sound of the wind beating his metallic suit was quite different from the whistling sound it made when it rushed through his regular suit. He reminded himself that he'd lost the mask of his Stark-suit when he pulled it off to breathe when rocketing to the stratosphere trying to rescue Dr. Strange. The webs hit the building across the street and he swung lower than usual, almost hitting a pedestrian. Two blocks down and he hit the wall next to Ned's window with a thud. He didn't like the slippery feeling of the wall under his metal covered fingers in his new suit.
He slid open Ned's window and crawled inside the room. It too, had been re-arranged with most of the things in boxes. He leaped from Ned's room into the living room and saw Ned's parents hugging him tightly and giving him food.
"Ned!" Peter said, mask retracting instinctively.
"Peter Parker!" said Ned's parents, "You're the Spider-man!" And Peter realized that even more people had just found out his secret identity. Weird, usually Peter was more careful of this, but it felt like it didn't matter as much anymore. Or at least not around Ned's parents.
"Ned," Peter said. "What happened?"
"I'm not sure," Ned said. "I had this weird dream where you were there and there were aliens. I woke up and I was holding this stone."
"Where's that stone?" Peter asked.
Ned held out his hand. He was holding an amber stone. Peter picked it up and it felt alive, it was squirming, slipping from his hands, and then it flew back into Ned's hand.
"What is it?" Ned's dad asked.
"I think it's an infinity stone," Peter said.
"Like the ones Banner was talking about," Ned's mom realized.
"But, how did you get it?" Ned's dad wondered. "How are you two even alive again?"
"I keep telling, you, dad, I don't remember."
"Um, can you please call my aunt?" Peter asked. "I lost my phone."
Ned's mom let Peter borrow her phone. Peter squinted at the weird setup – apparently the android platform had changed – and found the phone dialer and tapped the phone number his fingers knew from memory.
It rang three times before May picked up, "this is May Parker speaking."
"Aunt May…," Peter started.
"WHAT?" May screeched, recognizing Peter's voice.
Peter worked his jaw trying to get his ear to stop ringing.
"How is, how is this possible?" she said. "I, can't believe…"
"May…"
"…that this is happening. This isn't the typical Parker luck."
"Aunt May, it's going to be fine. I'm at Ned's."
"I'm driving there, right now," she said. Peter overheard a door thud and keys clinking against each other.
Peter would have kept talking to her, but he suddenly had a very terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. He leaped to the window and peered out.
On the ground, Thanos stood, he was looking around, cautiously, and then Peter realized – he was looking for the soul stone.
"Karen," he said.
"Yes, Peter?"
"I really, really, really, need to call Mr. Stark."
"I wish I could do that, Peter, but I already explained…"
"I'm alive, Karen."
"I understand, Peter, denial is the first stage of grief."
"Karen, just think about this, how could I be talking to you if you're a computer and I'm dead?"
"I don't know, how could you?"
"Augh, computers are supposed to work for people, not against them," Peter said, craning his neck as he saw Thanos started walking the wrong direction.
Karen spoke, "I have figured it out: you're not Peter, you're a criminal who has stolen me. I'm calling Mr. Stark."
"Finally," Peter said somewhat relieved that Karen was finally calling Mr. Stark. What he didn't realize was that Karen had more plans.
He tried to take a step and tripped over his feet. He tried to stand up but the feet of the suit kept changing. The iron-spider suit was made of a type of very flexible metal that could change its shape. The eyepieces became opaque. Peter stumbled further, crashing into the coatrack, burying himself under a pile of coats.
"Help!" Peter said, muffled. He heard the footsteps of Ned's family as the came from the living room to the front door.
"What's going on?" Ned's mom asked, staring at the metal shapeshifting suit.
"The suit!" Peter said, "It's attacking me!"
Ned and his dad started pulling at the suit while Ned's mom brandished a pitcher of orange juice and poured it on the suit to make it short out. They weren't really making progress but Peter began yanking at the mask and the Iron-Karen decided to slip off and slink away, leaving Peter in the red and blue suit without a mask.
Iron-Karen coalesced into a smaller version of the suit, so as to provide enough thickness in the metal for it to stand upright. "You're an imposter!" it said.
Just then, there was knocking on the door, Ned looked out and saw Ironman waiting. Ecstatic, he opened the door.
But even though Ned was geeking-out as Ironman stepped inside, Tony Stark could only stare at the spectacle of Peter Parker trading punches with the Iron-Karen suit.
"What on earth…," he mumbled.
"Mr. St-Stark!" Peter squeaked, doing a backflip to avoid a particularly devastating kick from Iron-Karen.
"Karen, stop!" Ironman said, instantly the suit went limp.
"Thanks!" Peter said, leaning against the wall
"Long time no see, Parker." Stark said.
"I know, I just-," Peter began.
"You don't have to apologize. I don't know how you're back, but we'll… We'll make sure you stay this time." Tony's eyes were melting with stinging tears and Peter took a staggered breath and hugged him. The pain of Peter's last memory of Tony Stark slipped away because they were both safe.
"Mr. Stark, this is Ned. He's my best friend. And these are John and Joy Leeds."
"Pleasure to meet you," Ironman said, shaking their hands. Ned was still gaping like a fanboy and the sweat on his palm would've rusted Ironman's armor if it were in fact made out of iron. Fortunately for Ironman, his moniker was unrealistic. His suit was so advanced that it was now a shapeshifting polymer. But Polymer-man did not have the same intensity.
"Um, Mister Stark…"
"What?"
"I think he… I think Th-Thanos is still outside," Peter said, shivering a little.