Chapter Eight: Ant-man Lectures Thanos About Parenting

Posted 5/15/2019

Author's Note: This is the last chapter. Part of it was written after seeing Endgame but it is not Endgame compliant. There is one reference that could possibly be a very minor spoiler plus I could've accidentally plagiarized dialogue without realizing it. I don't think I did, but it's possible, so I'm warning you about it.

This is the last chapter! It's the longest story I've written so far, so if nothing else, I have received some benefit for being sad about Infinity War. It has been a lot of fun. Thanks for reading!

Miles and Ant-man had just made it to the Avengers' Compound with the Sandman in tow when they saw Widow, Cap, Clint, Thor, Captain Marvel, Bruce Banner, and Rocket dashing towards the Quinjet.

"Hey, hey! What's going on?" Ant-man asked, very confused.

"Stark needs backup," Clint said. "In Queens."

Ant-man and Miles jumped onto the Quinjet. The back door shut but there weren't enough seats. Widow, Rocket, and both captains jumped into a very crammed cockpit leaving the rest to scramble for something to hold onto. Miles gripped the wall nervously as the plane zoomed into the sky and Bruce, Thor, and Ant-man fell into a terrible heap at the back as inertia and gravity flipped them head over heels.

Thor got up first, he walked over to Miles and said, "Ah, yet another pride of Midgard. Who are you, spider-child?"

"I'm Spider-man. The, uh, new one," Miles said.

Bruce stumbled over to him too. "It's great to meet you."

"Same here," Miles said. "But, where are we going?"

"Stark went down to Queens to answer a distress call, then he called for backup. Apparently, someone saw someone who looked like Thanos," Bruce explained.

"THANOS!" Miles and Ant-man jumped out of their skins.

"Yes, Thanos, what did you think he said?" Cap interrupted.

"Well, Miles, if there was any question about whether or not you're part of the team," Ant-man said.

I'm in. Miles thought to himself. I'm in, I'm in, I'm in! Now, what am I going to do!?

"The Wakandans are going to beat us," Rocket said to Captain Marvel in the cockpit. "Fly faster!"

"Of course, they are going to beat us. We're like, thirty miles away and the Wakandan Embassy is only just across the East River from Queens," Ant-man said.

"Not anymore," Captain Marvel said. Her eyes glowed, her hair glowed, and basically everything glowed, then the plane started glowing too and it flew even faster.

"We'll see about that," Thor whispered to his axe-Mjolnir. He jumped out the plane's side door and then Miles heard a thud on the hatch in the back as Thor started pushing the plane even faster through the sky using his Asgardian powers.

"What's that thing?" Clint said, looking at the canister that held the Sandman.

"I'm not a thing," it said. "I'm a man."

"What's your name?" Clint asked.

"Flint… Flint Marko."

"Well," Clint ran his hand through his Mohawk. "I'm Clint, Flint."

"They promised. Promised you could cure me," Flint said. Clint and Bruce got closer and they listened to his story.

〇

"Thanos is here?" Tony Stark asked.

"Yeah, I saw him outside the window," Peter said.

"But, why would he come here?" Tony muttered.

"Because of this," Ned said. Holding out his hand. The orange soul-stone resting in his palm.

"You have the soul-stone," Tony said. "How did you get it?"

"I don't know, I woke up with it, something about aliens," Ned explained, feeling very confused.

"Aliens? From outer space?" Tony asked.

"I… I don't know, there was a green alien and a red alien." Ned tried to remember.

"Do you remember any of this?" Tony asked Peter.

"I… I don't know. I remember something about my uncle," Peter said.

"We lost Ned when... when he turned to dust," Joy Leeds nearly cried. "He just appeared in his room about half an hour ago."

"Friday," Tony said. "Check the headlines and call for backup."

"Who's he talking to?" John Leeds asked.

"His suit computer," Ned said. "Peter does it all the time."

"But I don't do it like that," Peter muttered.

"No, you're worse," Ned smiled.

Peter shrugged his shoulders.

"Peter," Tony turned back to him and looked at him. His mask was up and Peter tried to read his eyes but he had a hard time looking straight into them. Tony spoke, "I don't know how you're alive, I don't know how you wound up back on earth, but I swear to God that I am not losing you again. I've called the Avengers and the Wakandans stationed at the Embassy." He held up his arm and a drone took off from his suit's gauntlet and flew out the window. "I'm sending a drone to figure out where Thanos is." He put down his visor so that he could watch the drone's view.

"Ned," Peter whispered.

"What?" Ned replied.

"I need a mask," Peter said. "One that doesn't retract all the time." His original mask was gone, pulled off as he flew into outer space. He needed to look for a new one. He glanced over at the Iron-spider suit crumpled in the corner, not wanting to risk wearing that suit again. Ned waved him over to his room. He pulled a box out from his closet.

"How about this?" he asked, pulling a black cowl out of the dusty cardboard.

"Batman?" Peter said. "I can't be Batman."

"Well, unless you want to cut two holes in a paper sack and say that you're the 'Bombastic-Bag-Man' I don't think you have a choice."

Peter scowled at the cowl, but then he put it on. He looked in the mirror. "Well, this is awkward."

There was a loud creak and then a giant CRASH. Ned and Peter leapt through the bedroom door into the living room.

Thanos was in their living room. Apparently he found them before Stark's drone could find them.

"No," Ned's mom shielded herself.

"Give me back the stone," Thanos thundered.

"How did you find us?" Tony asked. "Your agent talked to my agent?"

"My soul was part of that stone," Thanos said. "And when you stole it, you stole my daughter."

Ironman came to life immediately, running to Thanos.

Thanos said, "Give me the stone or I'll kill you."

"Not us, Thanos, let's take this outside," Ironman demanded.

Thanos grabbed Ironman, bellowed and threw him out the wall. Then he turned to Ned.

"Oh boy," Ned said.

Peter grabbed Ned under the arms and ran out Ned's window, "Come on!" He yelled. He threw a web onto the side of the building and bungeed up to the roof. Setting Ned down, he glanced up to see Ironman fly up to them.

"My mom and dad!" Ned shouted, worried.

"He's not after them," Ironman said.

"Did, did we lose him?" Peter asked shakily.

"Oh no," Ned said. They looked over as Thanos teleported up to them in a flash of blue.

"You can run, but you can't hide," Thanos said.

A roar came from overhead. Everybody looked up to see an Avenger's Quinjet soaring over them, heroes jumping out above their heads. Captain Marvel jumped out too, she and Thor working together to create a type of force-field that let everyone land slowly and safely on the room of the apartment building. They'd set the plane on autopilot to land at the nearest airport. Peter gulped, instinctively worried that it was going to get stolen again. But he suddenly had something else to think about. A boy in a Spider-man hoodie with a large canister of sand strapped to his back ran over to him.

"I can't believe it," Miles said, putting his hands on Peter's shoulders. "Somehow you survived. But, why are you pretending to be Batman?"

"Uh," Peter said.

"I'm Miles, I have Spider-powers too. I'm here to fight in your name. They all said you were dead. But you're not so we can web Thanos to the moon!"

Peter almost laughed, on any normal day he would've, but he was still downright scared of Thanos. The other heroes were all launching themselves at Thanos. Peter nodded and turned to the fight.

Peter and Miles ran over to the others. Miles turned himself invisible and jumped into the action.

Battle scenes are confusing. So much happens at once that it is hard to keep track of anything. The only reason that Miles could stay out of Thanos' way and out of friendly fire was through extensive use of his spider-sense. He might be able to throw a powerful punch, now, but at the end of the day, his safety was indebted to his enhanced sense of danger. Thor rained lightning down on Thanos, Rocket attempted to get close enough to shoot bullets into the Titan, Hawkeye slammed an arrow into Thanos' head, but even with all of this, Thanos kept snapping his gauntlet to activate the reality stone and heal himself. Miles noticed that the gauntlet looked a little bit worse for wear.

(This is where I saw the movie.)

"Thanos!" Ant-man yelled, he wasn't really sure how he could fight Thanos fist to fist, but he could distract him. "You're a bad dad! You don't even know how to keep your daughters happy. Girls don't like warfare, they like stuffed animals and cute ants, you idiot!"

Peter launched a web at Thanos and yanked himself towards Thanos, webbing Thanos' eyes while he was skiing through the air. He saw Thanos' right hand curling around to meet him and threw a web at Thor, thinking that he might be able to pull himself out of Thanos' path, but his web missed. Thanos' fist flew in Peter's face and Peter landed on the side of the air-conditioner – out cold but stuck to the metal like a smashed spider.

Ironman was hovering above the battle, he had been charge his glove into a rocket-propelled-mini-missile. When he saw Thanos punch Spider-man, he the missile shot towards Thanos, but Thanos had disappeared.

〇

As soon as the heroes had charged Thanos, Ned had scampered out of the way. Ned panted as he started down the fire escape. He felt a little like a deserter – leaving everyone to fight on the roof – but he was definitely not a fighter and they had to keep the Soul Stone away from Thanos. Unfortunately for Ned, he hadn't lost weight from the three months that he'd been dust and even though he was running down the fire escape, he still couldn't run as fast as his heart pounded for him to go. Not that that would be a good idea – the ground was down a two-hundred feet drop.

Ned had made it about half of the way to the ground when the metal steps creaked and Thanos appeared on the landing below in a cloud of blue dust. Ned turned to go back up the stairs but Thanos grabbed his ankle.

"HELP!" he screamed once, he screamed louder a second time, "HELP!" He was a nerd so he wasn't used to yelling at football rallies and it took a bit for him to warm up his voice.

Ned looked up and saw Bruce Banner running down the stairs towards him. Then a number of the other heroes launched themselves off the edge of the roof, but the one that got to Miles first was Ant-man. Scott Lang had shrunk to the size of an ant and had landed with a miniature thud on Ned's shoulder. Miles landed on the wall nearby, his hoodie slid a bit as he did a double-take at Ned, "Ganke?" he said, thoroughly confused.

"AARG!" Thanos thundered, he yanked on Ned's foot and threw him off the fire-escape. Above, Thor struck the fire-escape with a massive stroke of lightning and the fire-escape fell off its moorings and fell down.

"Oh man, oh man, oh man…," Ned repeated instinctively. Suddenly he felt huge hands, growing around his shoulders. He had stopped falling. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ant-man grinning, but Ant-man was now thirty feet tall. Ant-man started to say something but then he got dizzy and fell over. He landed in a heap, right on top of the plastic canister that held the Sandman. The canister crunched under his weight and the sand started pouring out. Thanos, who had just untangled himself from the wreckage of the fire escape stared as the Sandman rose out of the sand on the ground.

Thanos gasped and snapped his fingers. There was a red flash and the Sandman fell into a pile of dust – or at least that what it looked like – two seconds later he was standing there again, looking more like Flint Marko than he had in a long time.

"That thing won't work on me," Marko grunted.

"How did you…?" Thanos began, but before he could finish his sentence an invisible voice shouted behind him, "Venom Strike!"

Electricity rocked Thanos and he fell over, Miles standing over him. The others: Thor, Hawkeye, Captain America, and the Wakandans all pulled the gauntlet off Thanos' hand. Rocket jumped on the extraordinarily faint Ant-man and pulled some discs out of his tool-belt. "Let's see," Rocket muttered. He Frisbee threw the disc at Thanos, and Thanos started to grow terribly enormous.

"Let me see those," Natasha said, leaping up onto Ant-man's stomach where Rocket was perched. She grabbed a red-rimmed disc and chucked it at Thanos. It was a direct hit and Thanos started shrinking. He started to wake up but the Wakandans hit him with their electrical spears.

Rocket started jumping up and down. "Yes!" he screamed. "Yes!"

"Oh…oh my stomach," Ant-man moaned.

〇

"Ow, my head," Peter moaned.

"It's going to be okay," Tony said. "You hit your head hard, but the CT ruled out any bleeding on your brain."

Peter blinked. He felt very foggy and it was hard to tell how much time had passed. "Where am I?"

"The Wakandan Embassy," a thickly accented woman walked over to him, her stance proud and ageless.

"We couldn't take you to a regular hospital because of your secret identity," Tony Stark explained.

"I guess… That makes sense," Peter said with a lot of effort.

He stared at his hand, there was something snapped onto his finger and a beeping machine. For some reason it was very interesting. He tried to think back. "I'm not sure what happened, Mr. Stark."

"What do you remember?" Tony asked.

"I remember we went into space, and there was this witch-doc-, I mean strange wizard doctor. Then we fought him on Titan, and we lost." He shuddered. "Then Uncle Ben told me something and then I was at Ned's apartment and we were fighting Th-Thanos."

"Thanos hit you on the head," Tony said. "Knocked you out cold."

"So, I didn't really go to space?" Peter asked.

"You did go to space and I shouldn't have let you," Tony said. "Who's Uncle Ben?"

"He's, he was like my dad. But I let him down – I – I don't want to talk about it."

"That's fair," Tony said.

"But if I was dust," Peter said. He stared at his hand which had a green glint. "How am I here now?"

"That has a very unusual answer," Tony said. "We captured Thanos outside of your friend's apartment and mostly we've been listening to what he's been saying. He's pretty passionate about destroying the universe, but fortunately for us he thinks he'll be able to convince us that he's right and so he talks a lot.

"Now, yes, that is annoying, but for some reason he recognizes your friend Ned, and he's been blaming Ned for stealing three of his infinity stones and taking his daughter Gamora away from him."

An image of a green girl with bright red hair popped into Peter's mind. "The little girl?" Peter asked.

"No," Tony said. "Gamora's a grown woman. You remember that group that called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy that we met on Titan? She was the one that they were looking for. We think that Thanos had killed her to get the soul stone. But here's the weird thing: he says that he was keeping her soul in the soul stone. Then, obviously, Ned somehow got the soul stone. My theory is that Ned used it to bring you guys back to life."

Peter blinked.

"I know it sounds crazy and Thanos is probably crazy and just saying these things, but what if it's true? Your friend Ned somehow got three of the stones away from Thanos. That let us beat him."

"Is everyone back yet?" Peter asked. "I mean, you know, all the other people who turned to dust?"

"We're working on that now. We're still missing two of the stones."

Peter's eyelids started drooping.

"And that's enough theories for today," Tony Stark said. "I'm going to let you get some rest and I'm going to find your aunt."

Mr. Stark walked out of the room and Peter drifted off to sleep again. He woke up some time later. He held up his left hand and stared at it. Somehow, there was a hologram of a green stone floating over his palm and he poked at it, but he felt nothing. He thought about Ned and how the soul stone would come to Ned's hand even if it was thrown away. He closed his eyes and fell asleep again.

〇

May Parker had been waiting. Despite the loss of half the population, traffic in New York City was still terrible. She had driven from the Manhattan apartment she'd been lucky enough to be living in while the paperwork was still sorted out after the global tragedy and had come to Ned's apartment in Queens just in time to see a wake of destruction and her boy, Peter already gone. It wasn't ten minutes later that she got the call to go back to Manhattan to the Wakandan Embassy.

The traffic was not good, news of Thanos had made the remaining population of Queens simultaneously decide to leave Long Island and escape and all the bridges and tunnels were filled with traffic. Aunt May didn't really understand why, if S.H.I.E.L.D. could go around with flying cars and massive heli-carriers the size of aircraft carriers, the general population couldn't have flying cars as well.

So, two hours later, when she'd finally made it to the embassy, she felt that she had made pretty good time. Obviously, she felt a bit guilty, being unable to get to Peter first, but with the Parker guilt came the Parker luck and apparently it wasn't all bad.

She sat by Peter's bed until he woke up again, holding his hand just because it was hard to believe that he was really back. She knew that, since he was a teenage boy, he probably would not like her holding his hand, so as soon as he started to open his eyes, she let go of his hand. But something dropped out of it with a ping on the floor. There was an emerald stone, she touched it, and somehow it didn't feel like an ordinary stone. She had never been one of those people that believed in the magic crystals that vendors sold in hippie-vibe gift shops, but she felt that the next time someone tried to hawk her a birthstone charm bracelet, that it at least ought to be as awesome as this green stone.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's an Infinity Stone, Aunt May," Peter mumbled. "But how is it here?" He sat up, swayed and held his head. "Augh."

"Are you okay?" Aunt May, said, putting her hands on his shoulders.

"Yes," Peter said, leaning towards her with a clingy hug. "I missed you."

"Not half as much as I missed you," Aunt May said.

"I won't go to space again," Peter said. "I'm sorry."

"Hun, I don't think that would have made much difference."

"Probably not," Peter said. "Aunt May, why didn't you tell me that my parents were spies?"

Aunt May dropped the Infinity Stone onto the floor and swore.

In retrospect, it might have been better for Peter not to say anything at all. Soon he had told her that he remembered talking to Uncle Ben and she had broken down crying. Perhaps, the reason he didn't remember anything very well was that he was not supposed to talk about what had happened. And Peter started crying too, because although he was back with Aunt May and he was not dead, his parents and Uncle Ben still were and their family was still in broken pieces.

〇

It was two weeks later and the remaining Avengers and Wakandans had congregated at the Avengers Compound to figure out what to do about Thanos and the stones. Gamora and her sister Nebula had arrived from space with the final stone and Nebula said she had simply been able to trace the path of the time-stone to find out where to go next. Miles had been invited and by some strange miracle his dad had given him permission to go upstate.

"What do we do?" Miles asked Ant-man.

"That's a good question," Ant-man said. "Usually I try to find some way to help out but no one here really knows me and all the people that I worked with turned to dust."

"So I'm the spider on the wall and you're the ant on the wall?"

"That's a disparaging way to put it," Ant-man said.

They had been arguing about what to do with the tiny shrunken Thanos. Most of the Avengers were worried that Thanos might spontaneously grow to full size again, and when Ant-man couldn't answer whether or not this was indeed a possibility, they shook their heads with annoyance.

"Well, then, he's going to have to die," Hawkeye said.

"Yeah, we can't let a dude like this get loose. Plus, he owes me," Rocket said.

"But, we don't trade lives and we don't take lives. We've stopped him already," Cap said. "We kill him and there might not be a way to get them back."

"I'm not hearing that again soldier," Iron-man said.

"I'm not a soldier since you had me discharged from the military," Cap snapped back.

"Men," Thor said. "It comes to this, this man is dishonorable. Whatever we do to him, it is better than he deserves. He has killed my people."

"And mine," Rocket said.

"And ours," said the Wakandans, who felt their numbers had been hit more severely than most.

"Well, I'm going to do something," Carol Danvers said. She took the admantium box out of the room next door and toted it out to the field then she threw it into the air and blasted it into space.

Carol strutted back inside the room. "He doesn't need to feel the wrath of earth," she said. "He needs to feel the wrath of space. The other galaxies deserve their revenge."

"Good," said Thor, smiling, "moving on, now we can get everyone back."

Everyone else stared in shock for a bit, but then they were interrupted as Black Widow opened the door and brought in the gauntlet. "It's been damaged, but we fit the stones back into their sockets. What?" she asked, glancing around at her teammates.

"Whoever uses it will probably die," Nakia said, looking at energy readings. "The gauntlet only reduces the charge enough to for a giant to survive it."

"This is where I can help," Ant-man said. "I'll grow, and then I'll use the gauntlet."

"That is not how it works," Nakia said. "You are human and you would die."

"Yeah," said Natasha, "You have a daughter, you can't do it."

"I think there is only one choice," Captain America said.

"Oh, I'm not having you do it." Iron-man said.

"I've lived long enough," Steve said. "I'm ninety-five years old."

"Yeah, and I'm hundreds and not even human," Thor said. "I'm worthy."

"I was given powers by super-soldier-serum," Steve said. "They can reinvent the serum and find others. Thor, you're the last of your kind. Tony, we can't replace your mind." He reached for the gauntlet but Banner grabbed it.

"You don't get it," Bruce Banner said.

"No, put that down," Iron-man said.

Peter, who had been hanging out on the ceiling to see past the heads of all the important people in the room, webbed the gauntlet.

But then Bruce pulled. Bruce pulled and in front of their eyes he grew taller and very green. Peter had to let go of the webs because the Hulk was pulling so hard.

"You're, you're the Hulk again my friend!" Thor laughed.

Bruce smiled and then he said one thing, "HULK SMASH!" The green fist blasted through the gauntlet and the stones flew off of it in all directions. The wind blasted the windows and the doors, and despite the solid construction of the building, it almost sounded like a tornado would pull the building to bits so everyone ran towards the center of the building. The wind blew in the locks and the doors blew open. Dust swirled around them and turned into the employees who worked for Iron-man. The Wakandans ran outside to their airplane, anxious to get home and find their lost people.

"Hulk, are you okay?" Natasha asked.

Bruce Banner looked up at her and smiled. "He's gone," he said. "The Hulk is gone."

〇

The stones had flown everywhere in the room. Miles picked up the reality stone and headed with Gamora to the cell where the Sandman was being held.

"What's that?" Flint Marko asked.

"It's the reality stone," Miles said. "It can change your reality. I hope that it can heal you."

"I don't know about that," Marko said. "Thanos already used it on me, and it didn't last very long."

"That's because he was using it wrong," Gamora said. "The Reality Stone was not made to change reality, it was made to hold it in place. We think we can use this stone to turn you back into your real human self."

"But if you do it," Miles said. "You won't be the Sandman anymore."

"I want to be human," the Sandman said. "Please."

Miles held the reality stone and he looked at Marko and imagined him as a human. Soon real flesh and muscles rippled under Marko's skin and his shook his head and the sand fell out of his real hair. He slapped his face to feel it was real.

They let Marko out of his cell and he left the building, walking down the road outside the compound. He smiled as he felt the sun hitting his skin, and laughed when the wind didn't blow him apart. He stuck his feet in the mud at the side of the road and felt the squishiness between his toes. No longer would the mud be absorbed into his sand body. No longer would he be unable to eat and he could hug his daughter without sandpaper skin scratching at her. He could get a real job.

"What, what did you do?" Hogan said, watching Marko walk away.

"We helped him,"Gamora said, as they took the Reality Stone back to the conference room.

"But that man is a criminal. Multiple thefts and destruction of property. We'll get in so much trouble after the government finds out he escaped."

"Maybe… They'll forget?" Miles shrugged.

Good-byes were said and Nebula, Rocket, Thor, and Gamora left to find the rest of the Guardians. They travelled first to Wakanda and found a very grumpy Groot palling around with Bucky, Black Panther, and Sam Wilson. After that they took off and flew up into space. Gamora looked out the window and a few tears trickled down her face. How could she love and hate Thanos at the same time? Maybe, maybe she needed to focus her love, focus it on the ones who truly loved her, the Guardians and her sister. That was the only way.

The Avengers hardly had any time to enjoy their victory. Soon they were having to come up with a way to explain everything to the public.

"It's like last time," Banner said. "We just tell them the truth. If they can't believe it, then it's fine, but we're not going to lie to anyone."

Peter looked at the Avengers, and it was sort of how he imagined. He'd imagined working with them, and helping them. He'd almost even quit school to come here, but now he realized that everyone was so much older than him, and maybe, after everything, it was not good to grow up quickly after all. He sat, his back against the back of a sofa, staring out the window. He'd gone into space and he'd been made an Avenger. Now that everyone was back he'd have to go back to school and pretend that none of this ever happened. He wondered how he could go back and get excited about literature or math when he'd seen so much death. There were crimes in the city, murders, and he could stop them. It felt too real, he wished that he could go numb to it and pretend that it didn't happen so that he could enjoy his life that he'd gotten back. But now that he could save people he felt guilty when he wasn't out there saving people and now that he had died he knew he couldn't just say, "I'll do it later." Time was limited.

Miles interrupted his solemn thoughts when he sat beside him.

Peter was wearing his mask and Miles couldn't read the seriousness in Peter's eyes. Miles looked so innocent, so naive. Yes, Miles had lost his mom, but Miles hadn't seen the same things Peter had, and Peter wished he could go back to how Miles was. Peter hadn't seen his Uncle die and he hadn't seen his parents die, and he hadn't realized before how this had protected him in a way. Peter had seen too much now and he didn't know how he could go back to being the friendly neighborhood Spider-man.

"Peter," Miles said, and Peter could see the grin under the hoodie mask.

"Yeah?" Peter said.

"I want to be like you," Miles said.

"You don't want to be like me," Peter replied.

"You're a hero and you're an Avenger. You've stopped so many bad guys. And, I have spider-powers too. You should tell me how to be you."

"Well, sometimes being a hero is hard," Peter said. "People aren't going to understand you and they won't understand what you're going through." He looked up at the sky. "You have friends, but they don't really understand what your superhero life is like, even when you tell them. When you're with your friends and family, you need to ignore you superhero instincts. Like, if you keep being a hero, you're going to automatically try to solve your friends' problems. Sometimes they just want you to hear them; listen to their stories. You're going to see things you know aren't right. You're going to be suspicious and you're going to notice more bad things that are happening. Like, I don't know how to put it, but it is nice to be oblivious sometimes. It's hard to enjoy things when you see other peoples' pain all the time."

"This doesn't sound like very encouraging mentoring advice," Miles said.

"Yeah," Peter said. "But we are heroes. We can't stop being heroes."

"Ant-man's a little less depressing."

"But he's not a Spider-man."

"He can't even stick to walls." Miles grinned.

Peter and Miles headed back to NYC with Happy Hogan, Miles was asking every question he could. "You know," Peter said. "We do live in the same city. You can ask me questions whenever you want."

Peter got off the plane and webbed to Ned's apartment. They would have moved, but now that everyone was back there were no empty apartments. The door had been replaced by a cheesy construction style door.

Ned held up his hand as Peter walked inside and they high-fived each other.

"Ow!" Peter said. Somehow the high-five had shocked him. He looked at his hand and saw that the green hologram was still there.

"Yeah," said Ned, "we'll have to make sure we only do the secret handshake with our other hands. I think if I wanted the Soul Stone would come back to me."

"I wonder what the Avengers are going to do with them?" Ned asked.

"They said something about returning them to where they were before Thanos got them," Peter said, and it was the first time that he said "Thanos" without tripping over his words.

"They better not return the Soul Stone," Ned said. "If they return it, we might die."

"We what?" Peter said.

"Well, I don't remember much," Ned said, "But I'm pretty sure it brought us back." He held open his palm and closed his eyes. The orange stone burst through the shoddily constructed front door and landed in Ned's hand. "Like a yo-yo," Ned said, dropping it and having it fly back to his hand again.

"Woah!" Peter said.

"You keeping the Time Stone?" Ned asked.

"I'm pretty sure that Doctor Strange wouldn't forgive me," Peter said. "I don't know if he's a real doctor, but I don't want to make him mad."

〇

Miles came home to Brooklyn and the lights in his house were on, he said thanks to Happy and got out of the car, climbing up the stone steps. He knocked on the door and unlocked it. He walked through, and said, "Dad? Mom?"

"Miles!" his mom screamed, she ran into their living room. "Estoy aquí... Estoy aquí. ¡Te amo, mijo!" [I'm here… I'm here. I love you, son!]

"Mom!" Miles said, hugging her tightly. He'd taken off his hoodie. They had enough to talk about before telling her that he was Spider-man.

He couldn't believe that he'd gotten her back. After the joyful tears and them eating whatever leftovers they had in the fridge, Miles told her about his spider-powers and he helped them up onto the roof. They looked out over the skyline of New York City, the wind had blown all the smog away from the city and the sun shone clearer over the buildings that it had in a couple hundred years. The sky was alive with the setting sun. High stratus clouds whisped way above the city catching the setting sun the way it does out West, beautiful colors painted over the clouds and Miles thought that it couldn't get any better than this. They sat up there until it grew dark, fireworks shot from Governor's Island, their sparks glistening in the windows of hundreds of skyscrapers and the people all over Brooklyn looked out their windows, climbing out on their fire escapes, looking out at the world, laughing, hugging their lost friends and family. Musicians came out in the streets and people began parading with whatever parade clothes they had. They looked down as a Chinese New Year dragon roared past followed by the green, purple, and gold of Mardi Gras, Color Guards carrying American and New York flags, and the mariachis of Cinco de Mayo. And the people looked wide-eyed with joy as their city had come back.

The End.