A/N: Thanks for all your reviews, people! You're the best!

Peter wanted a do-over on his space adventure, he decided, as he swam muddily out of his sleep. He had a vague recollection of waking up earlier, and then someone telling him to rest, and that had sounded like a pretty good idea, so he'd done it.

Blinking, he examined the ceiling. They must have made it out of the pirate spaceship without being shot down, because it didn't look like he was in a cage, and he was definitely lying on a bed.

Ned was going to love this story, if he ever made it back home.

Stiffly, he felt down his side to poke at where he'd been stabbed. Peter paused when his fingers felt soft, tender new skin where there should have been blood and bandages. It felt mostly healed, and… was he only in his boxers?

He struggled to sit up partially, the squishy bed reluctant to let him go.

"What…" he breathed, gingerly touching his side again. The bruise from the space-gun, too, looked as if it had been healing for weeks.

Peter finally looked around for Loki. The god of mischief was sitting casually in one of the pilot's chairs, reading a book, and eating an apple.

"Loki," Peter called, nervously eyeing his nearly-healed wounds, "how long have I been out?"

"A few hours," came the nonchalant response.

"A few-no way! I can't heal this fast."

Loki merely raised his hand, and the green magic-no, seidr, Peter corrected himself-glowed around it.

"Oh. Thanks," he said, but Loki didn't appear to have heard him, too engrossed in his book.

Peter sat up fully and swung his legs down to the floor. He'd been a little preoccupied when he'd first bled his way onto the ship, and hadn't really seen much of it.

It was an odd choice to have the bedroom be all bed, but it was a ridiculously comfy bed, so he wasn't about to complain. Everything was also white and orange, except for one of the benches, that looked pink.

Peter squinted at it, confused. Nope, it was definitely pink. He sorta remembered collapsing on a bench, and he was pretty sure that he'd stained that bench with his blood. A lot of his blood.

He decided that looking at it was a bad idea.

"So, where are we going?" Peter asked. He hadn't missed the fact that the ship was moving quickly. The view out of the cockpit made that obvious.

"I thought perhaps you might know," Loki said, only briefly looking up from his book. "Have you any idea where Maw's ship was headed?"

"Not a clue, dude. I'd really like it if someone would explain anything to me," Peter retorted irritably. He hated being the only one left out of the loop. Like when he went with Mr. Stark to Germany. Peter hadn't known what they were fighting over at the time, and he wished he had.

Loki snapped his book shut, and stared at Peter inscrutably. It started to make Peter twitchy after about ten seconds, not because of his Spidey senses or anything, just because this suddenly felt like some sort of test - a test he'd already failed because he didn't know what was on it, hadn't prepared for it or studied or anything. He swallowed uncomfortably.

Loki straightened in his seat, and the spell was broken.

"What do you know of Thanos?"

"Um… he's… a bad guy?"

"Infinity Stones?"

"Just-how about let's start with I really don't know anything at all," Peter said, feeling sorta like Harry Potter on the first day of Potions with Snape.

Not a bad analogy, actually.

"Very well," Loki nodded, after a moment. "There are six Infinity Stones: soul, mind, time, power, space, and reality. They were weapons of the Celestials, and individually, are immensely powerful in their own right; wielding them all together would make one... all-powerful."

"So, this Thanos guy-he's trying to collect them all?" Peter guessed.

"Yes."

"The guy that got taken on the ship, he- he had one, a stone?"

"The Time Stone," Loki confirmed. "That was Sorcerer Supreme Strange-"

"Sorcerer Supreme Strange?" Peter interrupted. There was some dude called Sorcerer Supreme Strange? So. Awesome.

Loki sent him an admonishing look.

"He prefers Doctor, actually, but yes. He can handle Maw, but not Thanos. Which is why it would be helpful to know where that ship is going. I need Strange."

Peter was still enjoying the sound of 'Sorcerer Supreme Strange' in his head, but Loki's words, although delivered in a level tone, soon brought him back.

"What does he want? I mean, Thanos. When- if he gets all the stones?"

"Ostensibly, he wishes to bring balance," Loki smirked. "But I have also heard he desires to court the Lady Death. A lovely gesture, killing half the universe."

Peter suddenly felt like everything was pressing in on him.

He hadn't known what he was getting into when he leapt off the school bus that morning. He'd expected a fight, a victory, maybe a 'Good job, kid' from Mr. Stark, and then he'd sneak back to school and tell Ned all about it in gym class while MJ rolled her eyes at them from the other side of the bleachers.

Peter hadn't been at all prepared for a space adventure, but he'd thought that it had sorta turned out okay so far. Loki had turned out to be pretty cool, even if he was really cagey about his plans, but seeing as how Loki was the only reason that Peter was not still in a cage or extremely dead, Peter had decided to put him on the 'good guy' list.

Only now he was hurtling across the universe with no clue where he was going on this orange and white and pink-from-his-blood spaceship, and Loki was sitting there in his space chair and calmly telling him that there was a bad guy who wanted to finish his rock collection and use it to kill half the universe, and it was happening right now, and Peter felt woefully unprepared.

"I wish I was home," he said quietly, trying not to cry as he thought about Aunt May. Sure, he was going to be in a lot of trouble when he got back, but he missed her, and he knew she'd be worried out of her mind about him. He wondered how many voicemails he had from her.

Loki seemed to be lost in his thoughts; he looked a little sad, staring into nowhere.

Peter let out a shaky breath, stared down at his bare hands, and blinked the tears away.

"Home."

It was so quiet, Peter wouldn't have heard it without his improved hearing. Loki was grinning wildly at him.

"What?" Peter asked, completely clueless as to what Loki meant. The god of mischief just threw back his head and laughed.

"It is a good thing you're here, little Spider," he said, swiveling the chair back around to face the controls.

"I know where we need to be now."

I can't help it, I love cryptic!Loki

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