A/N: Firstly, to Super secret bob: thanks for the compliment, I guess… I'm so happy you like my story! And I don't think Drax will get more time with Peter, but my characters all do what they want anyway.
My sister told me she thought it was funny that I talked about my characters like they were real people in my head. I had to confess that they really ARE-they get up in there and make me write things. I don't know if that's weird or not, but once I have a character semi-mapped out, they can literally hijack my brain. For example, if anyone's read my soulmates-au series 'Darcy and Everyone', the last installment was with Natasha, and she was the worst about it. I was jogging and suddenly I had Natasha-brain. For the entire rest of the run. And the rest of the day, because I didn't have an opportunity to scribble it down anywhere for hours. Then sometimes, my characters ditch me. I get a few stray sentences from them, and they're gone. Return date uncertain (but my brain is a fun place to play, I guess, cuz they usually come around eventually). Anyway, all that to say, Peter ran away from me last week, and it's okay now, I got him back (he's basically a mix of my two younger brothers and I know how to get them to do whatever I want muahahaha) but that's why this chapter was late. To make it up, Peter said he'd cooperate to make you all a really long chapter, so here you guys go!
They split up then, the Guardians and Nebula going back to their own ships. Peter could hear Drax muttering something about vengeance as he stalked off, following Mantis and Starlord.
Peter scrambled to follow Loki and Doctor Sorcerer Supreme Strange onto the Commodore, leaving Mr. Stark to hobble after him. It was rude, but he really wanted to avoid that lecture he knew was coming.
"Hi, Mister Strange, uh, Doctor, Sorcerer Supreme, sir. I'm Peter. Spiderman," he said, awkwardly holding out his hand.
"Just Dr. Strange is fine, Peter," the man said, his tone more amused than patronizing as he shook Peter's hand.
"Wow, okay, that's cool, uh, I wanted to ask-"
"Why you're not on Earth right now?" Mr. Stark interrupted, finally having made it onto the ship. He didn't look very happy, either.
"You gave me a new suit," Peter said defensively.
"So that you wouldn't die when you fell back to land from the stratosphere."
"I thought I could help!"
Loki and Strange were very pointedly ignoring the conversation from the pilot's chairs, pretending to be totally engrossed in getting the ship off the ground.
"And I thought I told you to go home," Mr. Stark insisted as he looked around the ship. He gave the giant bed a funny look, but he froze when he saw the bloodstained bench.
"Is that your blood? Did he hurt you?"
"Yes, but-no! Of course not!" Peter was quick to reassure him, but Mr. Stark didn't soften his gaze at all. He'd been hoping he could just gloss over the whole thing, but at this point it would be better to give in. Mr. Stark would drag it out of him one way or other.
"No… I tried to stick to the donut ship, and uh, I kinda got thrown off it into space, and then I woke up on a Pangorian ship, and Loki was there, and he helped me, and we got out and now we're here. The new suit is awesome though, Mr. Stark. The legs are really cool, I mean, thanks, yeah," Peter blurted, talking quickly, partly because he was nervous, and partly because maybe if he said it fast enough, Mr. Stark might just not notice all the dangerous bits. He didn't think it had worked though, because Mr. Stark stared at him with a very disbelieving expression.
"There's so many things you are in trouble for right now," Mr. Stark finally said, shaking his head. "And don't think I haven't missed that you didn't tell me how that happened," he jabbed a finger toward Peter's side, where the knife had sliced him. The new suit had some ability to self-repair, but it was obvious where it had done so; a smooth gray line bubbled outward, like a scar.
"Uh, well, there was a Pangorian with a space-gun, and another dude with a knife," Peter said slowly, looking anywhere but at Mr. Stark. Dr. Strange was studiously pretending he was deaf, and Loki was gently adjusting the controls as they sped out of Titan's atmosphere.
"Make up your mind, kid. Knife or space-gun?"
"Blaster," Peter heard Loki mutter, too quietly for anyone but him to hear. It made him feel a little better, though.
"Both," he admitted. "I couldn't dodge 'em both, so I just dodged the blaster, I was going to get hit either way-"
"The suit didn't hold up to a knife?" Mr. Stark squawked. "A suit I made?"
"It was a space-knife?" Peter offered weakly in defense. He honestly didn't know why the knife had so easily sliced through the brand-new suit, but Mr. Stark was clearly taking it personally.
"C'mon, let me see, then. How bad is it?"
"It's fine, it's all healed," Peter whined, trying to knock Mr. Stark's hands away from his side.
"Did he patch you up?" Mr. Stark gestured toward Loki.
"Well, I had no wish for him to bleed out on my ship," Loki replied smoothly.
"Excuse me?"
"I do not enjoy the company of corpses," Loki said slowly, turning to meet Mr. Stark's eyes, "and he fought well, for a child."
Mr. Stark was actually stunned into silence, and Peter looked at Loki in surprise. That was... a compliment? Well, the closest he'd probably ever get from the god of mischief. But…
"Hey, I'm not a child!" He protested. Loki just gave him his ubiquitous raised eyebrow. Dr. Strange turned away slightly, muffling a snort.
Mr. Stark sighed. "Right. We'll drop you off, no more fighting today. Your aunt can deal with this."
Peter felt several different things at Mr. Stark's words, most of them anger, but he squashed that down. It wouldn't help his case.
"She might not, though," he said quietly. "That's what we're fighting for, right? Thanos will destroy everyone we love. Aunt May might not…" Peter struggled for the right words. "Don't make me stay behind. I can- I need to help. I can't be a friendly neighborhood Spiderman if there's no neighborhood." He paused. "Okay, that didn't really make any sense, but you know what I'm trying to say."
He was acutely aware that Loki and Dr. Strange were intently listening, despite their 'distraction', but he didn't care. He needed Mr. Stark to understand. He needed to fight. It was the entire universe at stake, not just Earth, and if he didn't fight, there might not be an Aunt May to go home to. And just for good measure, he put on the eyes he gave Aunt May whenever he wanted to have ice cream for dinner (it usually worked).
Mr. Stark seemed to flounder for a moment.
"Okay… Okay, fine. Let's just-it's the end of the universe, sure."
Peter smiled weakly in relief.
"Oi, what's the plan, Reindeer Games?"
"I assume you…," Loki waved his hand vaguely, " assembled?"
Mr. Stark actually looked embarrassed. Peter felt a sort of sinking feeling.
"You didn't-nobody else on Earth knows what's coming?" He asked in horror. Mr. Stark was pointedly not looking at him.
"Dr. Banner is there, is he not?"
"Yes, we left him in New York," Strange said mildly. Peter wondered if anything ever made him lose his cool.
"Bruce, yeah, he's-he'll have called an assemble," Mr. Stark said, still looking a bit rattled. "So. Plan. What is it? Or was that it? Get everybody on one planet? Final showdown?"
"That was part of it," Loki said cautiously, sliding a glance at Strange.
"It's, ah, it's better if you don't know, Tony," Dr. Strange said, although he was clearly apologetic as he said it. "It's the end game."
"One in fourteen million, huh?"
"… and six hundred and five," Dr. Strange said. They were having some kind of stare-down that looked really intense (it was also really weird how they both had impeccably trimmed facial hair, was there like a support group for that or something?) when the Commodore jolted as they dropped out of… Lightspeed? Hyperspace? Warp? The vortex?
Whatever it was, Peter swayed gently forward on his toes to compensate for the sudden change in speed. Mr. Stark wobbled next to him, and caught himself on the wall.
"Woah," Peter breathed, finally looking out the cockpit window. The Earth looked beautiful from space. He hadn't seen the view as he was leaving (being preoccupied with clinging to the outside of the donut spaceship) and it was amazing.
Except for the invading alien army.
Peter had been a little worried that they might not be able to find where on Earth Thanos had gone, but it was definitely not going to be a problem. At least a dozen giant ships were already there, zooming to the surface, somewhere in… Africa?
"Looks like we're late to the party," Mr. Stark quipped.
"Wakanda, that's good," Strange muttered.
"What's Wakanda?" Peter asked, since everyone seemed to know already.
"A secretly rich and technologically advanced country in Africa," Mr. Stark said shortly, and something about the way he said it made Peter pause. He knew that tone. It was Mr. Stark's 'I'm-impressed-but-also-jealous-why-didn't-I-think-of-it-first' voice. Peter had once had the honor of having it directed at himself before, when he'd suggested something totally awesome for the Ironman suit.
"You mean they've got tech that's better than yours," he accused.
Dr. Strange was polite enough not to laugh, but Loki made a noise that sounded like a snort, and Peter could see his shoulders shaking.
"You're just here to keep me humble, aren't you, kid?" Mr. Stark sighed, but he was smiling, and Peter knew he wasn't mad.
They were approaching the invading alien ships, but Peter couldn't see anyone friendly. He couldn't see a fight at all, actually, and it was really weird, because it looked like the aliens were throwing themselves against an invisible wall, and-oh. Duh. There was a force field. Wakanda was awesome.
He was about to ask Mr. Stark how exactly it worked, when suddenly, a city appeared. Dr. Strange straightened, and Mr. Stark swore. Very creatively.
"What? Did we go through or was that…," Peter trailed off, already knowing the answer, but not really wanting to hear it.
"The shield is down," Loki confirmed anyway.
"I think it was on purpose," Dr. Strange mused.
They could see the fight now, down below, the alien hordes clashing with the Wakandans. Peter hoped the force field dropping was on purpose, because the fight didn't look so great from up where they were. Dr. Banner had done his job, though, because Peter spotted some of the other Avengers fighting below. The aliens were really weird, too. They had lots of arms, and they looked sorta human-shaped, but they ran on all their arms and legs. Peter wasn't sure why he was surprised, though, after all the aliens he'd met in the last day or so.
"Vision!" Mr. Stark abruptly lunged over the console, pointing toward the city. The android was speeding out of a tall building, down towards the battle.
Peter had met Vision before, in Germany, but there hadn't really been much time to talk to the guy-or, wait, Vision was an android, did they have preferred pronouns? Mr. Stark hadn't introduced him to anyone before the fight at the airport, and nobody seemed to want to play an icebreaker get-to-know-you game in the middle of a fight.
The ship swerved; Loki directing them to somewhere they could land. They lost sight of the main battlefield for a moment as he did, and when Peter saw it again, he felt his jaw drop. Lightning crackled and thundered over the battlefield with no clouds in sight.
"Um, I think Thor's here," Peter said dumbly, still watching the lightning in awe.
"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Mr. Stark said, rolling his eyes at him.
"We're going to have to fight our way in," Loki said tersely, as the ship touched down in an open space some distance from where Vision had headed. Peter knew Thor was a touchy subject (mostly because Loki rarely said anything about him) but Loki had asked the Guardians about him, so he had to care a little bit.
Loki hit the button to open the side doors as he stood, and Peter's Spidey sense suddenly went catastrophically haywire. Peter reflexively grabbed onto whoever was nearest, not caring who, (probably Loki, based on the leather-clad arm) and gasped through the all-encompassing feeling of danger! "Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something, and I eat one of you, I'm sorry."
"Kid, no, let's not start with the pop-culture references."
"I'm trying to say that something's coming," Peter snapped. He didn't mean to, but the Spidey sense was the strongest he'd ever felt it; it was like the first time he'd ever had sensory overload. "Something very, very bad."
"Thanos," Loki said, grimly, and they all looked out to see an ominous cloud of blue and black emerge in the distance.
He was here.
Dun dun dun…
I'd also like to announce that there's going to be a sequel to this, thanks to a comment I got on Ao3! If anyone has suggestions for an adventure they'd like to see Loki and Peter have, please drop a comment! Love you guys!