As I said on the last chapter, if the Endgame trailer showed me anything, it was that i should have at least watched Ant-Man and the Wasp before writing this story. As I didn't, the idea I'd seen/heard floating around about both Clint and Scott losing their families to the Snap was what stuck with me, so I'd gone with it. Oops.

Hello, everybody; ModernDayBard here!
Chapter three is here—this is about the part of the story where I gave myself a bare-bones outline, of sorts. Not even really an outline, but a list of scenes and the order they should come in, a moment or two I felt needed to be there. I still wanted to leave myself enough room for the story to surprise me, but if I had a good idea, I didn't want to forget it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, their characters, settings, McGuffins, etc. I own the ideas I suppose, as much as anyone can (though they've been heavily influenced by listening to discussions and reading other fics) and the words that I have chosen to narrate with.

By the next day, Peter was able to get up and walk around, though his side still twinged occasionally. He chose not to comment on that in fear that, if he did, they'd keep him out of the big meeting.

Oh, yeah—the meeting.

It'd be a rush to put it together, but then, most of the people invested in fighting Thanos had already been in Wakanda, and in the main city, so rounding all of them up hadn't actually been as hard as anticipated. Black Widow had flown in that morning with two people in tow that Peter vaguely remembered from Berlin: Hawkeye and Ant-Man.

Peter sat in the large room—one of the first arrivals—and watched people filter in, so he saw the hollowed-out look on both men's faces. It was the expression of someone who'd fallen so far into grief they'd landed in the numbness on the other side. He recognized it, his stomach twisting in sympathy. He'd been pulled back from that same overwhelming nothingness by finding out that May, Ned, and MJ had lived. Even as he felt guilt that after getting Mr. Stark killed he hadn't lost his friends or family, he wondered who these two had lost.

He forced himself to look away, as if trying to preserve some semblance of privacy or dignity for the other heroes, and caught the dark gaze of Nebula. The blue girl had been shadowing him since the two had arrived in Wakanda, as near as he could tell (having been unconscious for the first few hours), but he supposed he could understand: it may have been a strange country to him, but it was a strange planet for her, and he was the one familiar face for her besides the talking raccoon that seemed to be actively avoiding her and had kicked her off of the ship they'd arrived on (apparently, Peter put together later, the raccoon was a part of the team that'd fought beside them on Titan, and the teen felt another twist of guilt for failing to save those three, as well).

Nebula looked away quickly, but she practically radiated discomfort as the room began to fill with people—though it was nowhere near full, now that their numbers had been cut in half—and Peter felt some of his own nerves fade as he tried to reassure her. "I told you: not alone."

Her only response was to glare at him, but he found it didn't faze him much at all: he'd begun to realize that was pretty close to her default expression.

Before the conversation could progress, Rhodey, Cap, and Thor entered together, and the Asgardian's expression was set with some kind of grim or desperate hope that, as dark as it was, was still so out of place in the current mood of the room that all assembled seemed to note in and fall silent, awaiting some sort of explanation. Even the colonel and the captain didn't seem as lost or resigned as they had when he'd woken up, and though Peter had no idea what was coming, he leaned forward, sensing he wouldn't want to miss any of it.

"We might be able to bring them back."

The room had been silent before, and after Captain America's statement, it was frozen, too. Even with all the emphasis he'd put on the conditional word, the fact that he dared to state that the one thing they longed for was actually in the realm of possibility meant that everyone was focused on Steve Rogers.

But instead of explaining himself, he gestured for Thor to step forward and speak, which the Asgardian did.

"The power that wrought this tragedy—the six Infinity Stones—is a difficult one to wield, but if we are able to defeat Thanos and take the Stones from him, it is theoretically possible to undo what has been done. I do not know if there is any among us capable of wielding all six at once, or if some group of us would have to use them in concert, but according to what legends there were on Asgard, either method should work, if all involved held the same purpose in mind."

Again, the hope offered was weakened and watered down by 'might's' and 'should's' but it was so much more than any one of them had held only moments before. Some, however, were determined to not let hope deal them any further pain.

Nebula stood, glaring down at the three men. "And how do you propose we actually defeat Thanos?"

"Together," Captain Rogers replied immediately, nearly automatically.

Peter heard Nebula's scoff, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the rest of what Rogers was saying.

"We fought him piecemeal, in stages, and it wasn't enough. I know we don't feel as strong now, so that's all the more reason to combine what force we have."

Colonel Rhodes now stepped forward to add to the answer. "There's unfortunately a lot of unknowns; to start with: where Thanos even is and what sort of force he'll muster to meet us. But we have some reasons to hope, as well. Whatever he did wiped out every part of his army here on earth, so even if he has more, we can assume they are also greatly reduced. Even better, Thor reports that, immediately after the Snap, both Thanos and the Gauntlet seemed to be in rough shape, so it took a lot more out of him than he anticipated, I think. Of course, the longer we delay, the longer he has to recover, so all necessary preparations need to be weighed against an admittedly vague deadline."

It wasn't much of a definite answer, more a summary of all they didn't know, but something in the plain speech that asked them to focus on doing something specific, rather than a vague 'recover' seemed to galvanize the room of heroes, and the next part of the meeting was spent discussing possibilities, resources, and strategies.

Peter didn't contribute much, but he listened to everything, especially once Nebula began to add her piece in. A sort of shocked ripple went through the room when she revealed her connection to Thanos, but Peter didn't really worry too much—he remembered (through a haze of the pain he was in at the time) how vehemently she'd spoken of ending Thanos. He trusted her.

And it seemed she actually knew a good deal of what they needed to know—and could give a pretty good guess at the rest. She narrowed the 'where' down to three otherwise-uninhabited planetoids and informed them that, in all likelihood Thanos was currently alone, though if the Gauntlet was not to damaged, he did still have fragments of his army he could summon.

Then a girl Peter hadn't noticed before (apparently she was the princess of Wakanda?) turned the question to gear and what her lab could provide, even volunteering to inspect suits and weaponry to see if there were any upgrades that could be made quickly, even if the damage sustained had been minimal.

Once they started talking actual battle strategies and transportation arrangements, Peter slipped out of the room. It wasn't that he wasn't interested—in fact, he was pretty sure he'd need to ask someone for the recap later, once a definite plan was set—it was just that it was hitting him what kind of a mission he was on, and how long it might be before he was back on earth.

All at once, he didn't feel much like Spiderman ('Friendly, Neighborhood' or any other kind), he just felt like Peter Parker: a kid in over his head that didn't want to go into space again without seeing his aunt, his friends, one more time. What if he hadn't made it back from Titan? How long would May, Ned, and MJ wonder? Who would've told them? If he didn't make it back from this trip, there probably wouldn't be anyone to tell them. He couldn't just leave—not without saying goodbye. But if he did go to them, would he be able to force himself to leave them for the space mission? Would they let him?

Peter never was sure how long he'd sat in that hall, staring blankly at nothing before his heightened senses picked up approaching footsteps. Glancing up, he saw that it was Hawkeye exiting the meeting hall, expression still hard to read, but undeniably grim.

The two noticed each other at about the same time, and the older hero frowned, obviously struggling to place the teen without the suit.

"You alright?" the archer asked after a moment.

Peter actually had to think about it. The meaning of that word certainly had changed in the handful of days since everything fell apart. "I'm not hurt," he finally settled on, though even that wasn't strictly true, as a twinge in his side was all too happy to remind him.

Hawkeye's expression didn't clear, and he sat next to Peter almost without thinking.

"Not what I was asking, but I guess nobody is, any more. How'd a kid like you get roped into this fustercluck?"

Peter blinked at the self-censored swear that'd come without even a brief pause before hand, then answered the question without commenting on it. "I tried to help Mr. Stark—" (there was that damn voice crack again) "—save a wizard from an alien."

The man beside him nodded slowly, not commenting, though Peter did pick up an eventual, muttered, "…world just keeps getting weirder..." Aloud, though, he followed a different track, "So, did you know Tony or was it just a case of being in the area?"

How did he answer that? It wasn't like he could claim to actually know Mr. Stark very well—he couldn't even bring himself to think of the inventor on a first-name basis—but they were more than passing strangers.

"H-He's been helping me out. Resources, training, advice…" Only, it'd been so much more—but he didn't know the words that could adequately summarize what it was, and even if he'd had them, he wasn't sure he'd want to verbalize them.

Hawkeye was still watching him, frowning as he continued sizing up the younger hero. "And he pulled you into a fight this big—" Before Peter could protest the disparagement he heard, the other man shook his head, apparently having changed his own mind. "No, he wouldn't. Let me guess: you were already pulling these sorts of stunts when he stepped in?" At Peter's nod, a little of the archer's expression cleared. "That's more like the Tony I know. And I'm not exactly one to talk, either; Wanda can tell you—" He cut himself off then and fell silent, glaring at the wall across from him.

Peter was trying his best to keep up, and the name 'Wanda' had been familiar…someone else from the airport fight, maybe? Well, there'd only been two women, and the other one was the Black Widow, and the girl with the red energy on the other team had seemed pretty young… and he hadn't seen her since his arrival.

He didn't know what to say, faced once again with the scope of how massively they had lost and how many people were just…gone. How did he escape with just losing one? Hawkeye had lost so many, just about everyone around him here, had. Nebula was alone, and Rocket, and the stories he'd heard about what Thor had gone through…

It was Clint who pulled himself out of the dark silence first, again looking at the teen beside him. He knew the others would be tripping over how young the boy seemed to be. They'd only been alright with the Maximoff twins joining up because the twins already had been fighting—it simply became a case of switching to fight for their side. Also, he thought it highly likely that because Wanda and Pietro looked older than they were the other Avengers hadn't really thought about the fact they were bringing teens onto the battlefield. To be honest, he hadn't, either, until Pietro took those bullets for him.

When he'd woken up, he'd tried to keep Wanda away from further fights, but she firmly informed him she was an Avenger now—just like he'd told her. He remembered seeing in her eyes, then, that while she was still young, she wasn't a child, she was a fighter. This kid may have had a younger-looking face, but he probably was about the age the twins had been when the Avengers met them, give or take a year, and he had that same look in his eyes. Whatever he'd already seen, faced, and fought—he wasn't a child to be told to stand by and let the others protect him, he was one you trained and helped so he didn't get in over his head. He was one you fought beside so he had someone watching his back.

Just what Tony had been doing, apparently.

"You got a family, kid?" Why did he ask that? If the boy was here, on his own, the answer likely wasn't good, and he knew better than anyone about not wanting to think about what'd been lost just a few days before.

But the kid didn't tense up. "My aunt. In New York City. They can't get her out here, yet." The homesickness in that voice was palpable, and a bit of worry, too. Well, given the chaos spreading across the planet right now, that did make sense.

Clint took another heartbeat to size up the slumped figure beside him, reading the nonverbal cues even as he replayed tone of voice, but the conclusion he reached was the same as his gut instinct, so he went with it. "You want to see her before you go."

Bingo. Up came the head, and the teen's eyes were locked on his. Clint kept talking. "Makes sense—we don't know how long we'll be gone. If we'll come back. Best to make a proper goodbye first. What part of New York?"

"Queens," came the whispered reply, then the kid glanced back at the meeting room, but Clint clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"They're still talking, then they've got to get everyone wrangled together and geared up. We've got time to go, get back, and suit up."

Otherwise he'd be here with nothing to do but think over that horrible instant when he was standing in his living room, trying to wrap his mind around being the only person on his farm.

A suspicion had been growing in Peter's mind all through the conversation with Hawkeye—Clint, he told Peter to call him—sparked by the automatic not-swear and reinforced by the way the older hero treated Peter, carried himself around him, kept glancing at him as the two settled into the Quinjet, the muttered advice, the implication he'd been comfortable enough around at least teens to recruit another young hero, and a hundred other little details and moments.

As they reached level flight after takeoff, Peter gave the thought a voice. "You work with kids a lot?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted it. He could feel the archer tense up and shut down, and remembered with a sickening twist the dark, numb expression on the man's face before the meeting had started. Why did he go and open his big mouth? Why hadn't he left well enough alone?

"Every day." The answer was a taut monotone that felt like a punch to Peter's gut.

In an effort to offer even a little shred of hope, the teen echoed the captain's words, "We might be able to bring them back." It seemed a pathetically small comfort, and even smaller chance, but it was what Peter had to hold onto at the moment, and he offered it willingly, if weakly.

Hawkeye—Clint—glanced over, expression unreadable. If he had to guess, the young hero would say the man was weighing the need to not get his own hopes up with the instinct not to crush another's.

"So, how did you find yourself in this little sideshow?" was all he said, in the end.

Feeling he owed the man a distraction, Peter launched into the story of how he got his powers. Perhaps not as animated as the few times he'd told it in the past, and he tried his best not to ramble down side trails, but the archer seemed to actually be listening.

When Peter reached the end, Clint shook his head, managing a wry smirk. "DIY option, huh? Gotta give you props for that. When did Tony step in?"

The teen hesitated, wondering if the current mood could handle a reminder of Berlin, or if his subsequent adventures would make sense with it omitted.

But the older man could read what a person didn't say as much as what they did, and Peter had described his first attempt at a suit, which was apparently clue enough for the older hero. "The airport?"

"He didn't think it would be a fight," Peter felt he had to add. At least Clint nodded, at that.

"None of us wanted it to go that way. We could drive ourselves mad running alternate scenario's and what-if's. Still, probably not the best first impression."

Peter shrugged. He'd not really given it much thought—on purpose, if he was being honest—and hadn't really expected to run into 'the other guys' from Berlin again, so hadn't really considered any kind of grudge. "I'd been noticed," was the explanation he offered at last, and the nod the archer gave him seemed to say he understood.

"So, you stuck pretty close to Tony after all that?"

Peter gave a lop-sided grin. "Tried. Probably made a nuisance of myself. Then I thought I'd messed up somehow and had to prove myself, so I kinda…"

"Got in over your head?"

"Only on the ferry!" Peter rushed to interject. "I actually did catch the bad guy on my own—with my old suit, too, not the new one. Did ruin my homecoming date, though."

The smirk Clint was giving him was definitely a teasing one. "Give her time. Girls love a hero."

Peter suddenly found the floor of the plane very interesting. "Well, her dad kinda was the bad guy, and he tried to kill me when he found out that I'm Spiderman. I mean, he dropped a building on me. And now that he's in prison, she and her mom decided to move. I guess I can't really blame them, and I don't know if I ever could've really made it work, anyway." He finally managed to make himself stop talking, face bright red at that last addition.

Hawkeye only nodded sympathetically. "High school can be rough."

The ridiculous understatement hung in the silence that lasted during the last few minutes of their approach to New York City.

If anything could make Peter question his resolve to continue the fight against Thanos, feeling the relieved sobs that shook May's frame as she clung to him would have been it. The teen didn't care that MJ and Ned were also in the living room, watching the two—if anything, having the three of them all in the same place was a relief, as he could keep an eye on all of them at once.

Eventually, Ned grew tired of waiting his turn and joined the now group-hug. MJ hung back a little, but she did reach over to grab Peter's arm with a grip of steel that conveyed more than she'd ever put into words.

How could he think of leaving? He was needed here—how could he leave them behind and travel across the whole galaxy when there was little to no chance he'd be back? Clint was just outside the apartment, waiting—it'd be so easy to poke his head out, to say that he couldn't go. Surely the archer would understand?

Abruptly MJ released his arm and stepped back, her usual mask of indifference slipping into place as she sized him up. But it was no longer whole, there were cracks, especially at her eyes, where hurt and anger did battle. "You've got to go," she said at last, and Peter flinched, thinking the anger was directed at him.

May and Ned gaped at him, holding tighter as if to force him to stay. MJ kept talking in a voice that was almost dead.

"You're going after who or what did this." She left no room for denial, the same as when she'd informed him only a few weeks before that she knew he was Spiderman. "Can you fix it?"

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? "We think so."

MJ nodded once, anger winning the battle at last, but not for anyone in that room. "Then do it. Go bring them back—all of them. Ned and I'll look after May for you." The mask more firmly in pace, she held his gaze, a general giving her orders, allowing no protest.

Suddenly, Peter noticed the two make-shift beds—one on the couch, one on the floor, and looked between Ned and May for the confirmation. "You've been staying here? Ned—" but he could not form the question, and the expression on his best friend's face was answer enough anyway.

"Peter, don't—" Ned tried, but the other teen was already worming his way out of the embrace, albeit, reluctantly.

"I'm going to bring them back. We're going to fix this. We have to." He finally dared to look at May, swallowing back further tears at the stricken look on her face. "We have to."

"I know," she admitted at last. "That's what scares me."

He stepped in for one last hug—a farewell, this time—and his parting words. "Keep each other safe. I love you." He let his eyes rest on each of them, letting go of teenage shame to be sure they each knew he meant it. He didn't say that he'd be back—couldn't bring himself to promise something he wasn't sure he could deliver.

It was MJ who guided him out the apartment door, pausing only briefly for her final words to him. "Don't take too long, now. You're my prom date, after all."

Peter blinked at the non-sequitur. "Wait—I am?" He was pretty sure he'd remember asking her, but it had been a trying week.

MJ went straight for a kiss on the lips, a parting shot of, "You are now," and a door slammed abruptly in his face.

Peter stood there in shock for a moment, suddenly intensely aware of Clint leaning against the wall a little ways down the hallway, arms folded, watching the whole final exchange. The teen turned to the archer, finding a smirk on the older hero's face. "High school," was the only thing Hawkeye said, before heading back down the hallway, out of the building.

When they'd made it to where he'd left the jet—in cloaking mode, yes Natasha, he wasn't always an idiot—there was a woman standing there. Back to them, arms wrapped around herself as if they were the only things holding her together anymore (an all-too common assessment, in this post-snap universe), she was a pitiable figure, but not an unfamiliar one.

"Pepper," he whispered to himself, dreading the coming encounter. He knew they'd already gotten word to her about losing Tony, so at least he wouldn't have to be the one to deliver that news, but as he knew all too well what she was feeling, this was not a conversation he was eager for.

To Clint's surprise, the kid stepped forward with a stricken expression on his face. "Miss Potts—" he began, and the archer wasn't entirely convinced the voice crack was because of his age.

Pepper turned at his voice, face crumpling a little at the sight of them, but as she focused on Peter, she tried to muster something of a wan smile. The teen dragged himself in front of her, head hung and eyes firmly on the ground. Clint was startled at first, then thought that, if Tony really had been a mentor-figure to Peter, the kid probably knew Pepper, too. Though why he looked so dejected at the sight of her, the archer couldn't think—

"I'm sorry."

He could barely make out the words, Peter's voice was so small. Abruptly, Pepper stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the boy, who was shaking with—tears?

Clint held back as the two cried together, not out of any cold-hearted motivation, but out of the sense this was a sort of private moment for the two, and in hopes of keeping himself at least partially together and moving forward for as long as he could.

In interest of that, he kept his mind focused on this scene instead of wandering back to his own grief, trying to puzzle out why Peter was looking and acting so—

Guilty.

As soon as the word suggested itself, the archer felt the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. How had the kid put it when asked how he got wrapped up in everything? 'I tried to help Mr. Stark save a wizard from an alien.' Admittedly, Clint hadn't really followed, or even cared about, the shattered fragments of the tale of the fight against Thanos that'd he'd been given or that he'd overheard, but he'd heard Stark had dissolved after the snap somewhere other than Wakanda, after a small team he'd been with had failed to hold Thanos. Had Peter been—

Well, the answer to that question was right in front of him, wasn't it? No wonder the kid sounded funny whenever he talked about Stark: he hadn't just heard that Tony had died, he'd likely seen it happen.

Damn.

Pepper stepped back, putting a gentle hand on the side of Peter's face, lifting his head to look at her. "He was so proud of you," she told the still-tearful boy. "Happy, too."

The teen started, eyes widening, and it took Clint a half-second to remember that 'Happy' wasn't referring to Stark's mood, but to someone he worked closely with, right? Apparently, someone Peter knew, as well, based on that reaction.

Pepper looked about ready to fall into tears again, but she was holding them back now, holding onto some kind of determination that the archer, personally, envied. "Whatever it is you've got to do—whatever you're going to do," she said, her gaze flicking over to Clint for a moment, including him in her statement, "You go and do it. Keep each other safe, all of you. And I'll keep checking in on May, while you're gone."

She turned and walked away, then, self-control perhaps exhausted, leaving the two heroes and the invisible jet alone. Clint walked up to the teen, watching as the kid took three deep, shuddering breaths, then raised his head, determined expression back in place.

"We're going to bring them back," was all he said, and despite Clint's determination not to get his hopes up—not to let himself lose his family twice—he almost believed the kid.

So, yeah.
About half-way through this chapter, I'd taken a bit of a break from writing this story, but came back in on the apartment scene and things picked up again. I had to work Clint into the story, of course (I've always loved archers, so he was definitely one of my favorite Avengers from the start, even though he got the short-end of the development stick for a while), and I knew I wanted a scene with Peter and Pepper, but I didn't expect to kill off Happy until I'd written that line. Like I said, I like to let this story surprise me. Hopefully, you think the approach is working!
As always, if you saw something you liked, or something you think I can fix/improve on for next time, don't hesitate to leave a review and let me know!