This one is a sequel to Disassociation. Also it is short and sweet because I worked two jobs today and I've been doing this for 26 days and I'm very tired lol.

Magical Injury

"Peter?"

The whispered voice made Peter fight a smile as he lay in bed, his head turned away from the door. He lay as still as he could, taking deep, even breaths. A small foot took a single step into the room.

"Peter? Are you awake?"

He was. The nightmares had been surprisingly persistent since he'd come back from the dead only to grab Mr. Stark's hand and nearly die again. He dreamed of watching Mr. Stark die from the sidelines…dreamed of being unable to move as the Infinity Stones killed the man he loved like a father. He dreamed of the aliens descending on him and knowing that no help was coming. He dreamed about turning to dust…about feeling his body break apart. About reaching for Mr. Stark and begging the man to help him but knowing he couldn't.

"Peeeeter?" the voice whispered again, and he fought the battle against his own smile, but his face was turned away so he knew she couldn't see. "Peter? Are you sleeping?"

The footsteps crept towards him, her bare feet tip-toeing across the wood floor, and she might have been harder to hear if it hadn't been for her suppressed giggles. She wasn't supposed to be in here, he knew. She'd been given very strict instructions to leave him alone and let him sleep. But she still tried to sneak in almost every day. Hands pressed to the blanket beside him, pressing gently down.

"Peter?"

He roared, spinning around and grabbing her with his left arm, grinning when she squealed and giggled, kicking her feet and squirming, then screaming with laughter when he tickled her.

"Got you!"

"No! No no!" she giggled, and he stopped, letting her catch her breath, but she kept laughing, scooting in close to his left side. "Are you still sick?"

"I'm okay." He was still sick, actually. Apparently the amount of magic that had been in his system from the infinity stones was enough to kill a normal human…he'd taken more of it than . A week after being brought to the house by the lake, he was still mostly confined to bed. But it was a bed next to a huge window that looked out onto a lake and trees and a little playhouse that he knew belonged to Morgan, so he guessed it wasn't so bad.

"Can you come outside and play with me yet?"

"Sorry, Mo. Not just yet."

She sighed, slumping down on the bed. "That's what Daddy said too." She rolled over, being careful when she bumped him. "How come you're stuck in bed?"

She already knew the answer, but Peter guessed it was like any other story…she wanted to hear it over and over. "Well, there was this really bad guy." She tucked herself into his side and he wrapped his good arm around her, his right arm still wrapped up. "And your dad and I…"

"Iron Man and Spider-Man!"

"That's right. Iron Man and Spider-Man went to outer space to stop him. His name was Thanos." Even saying the name was hard, but he made himself do it. He'd keep saying it until it didn't hurt anymore. "And Doctor Strange went too, and some other aliens. Star Lord. Mantis. Drax. They were all there to fight the bad guy, because that was their job. So they all got to Titan and made a plan to fight him and make him stop hurting people."

"But the bad guy won," she whispered, and he nodded.

"That's right. The bad guy won. He made half of the people in the entire universe disappear! And Iron Man had to go home alone with an alien lady named Nebula. They became friends, but the space ship they were on didn't work." He had gotten this part of the story from Mr. Stark later, when the two of them had been sitting on the sofa, which was as much exertion either of them were allowed these days according to Dr. Banner and Dr. Strange who still checked on them every day. Peter had been irritated about that until he'd tried to walk around his room in secret one day and had nearly had to drag himself back into bed before Friday tattled. He'd slept for the next ten hours, scaring just about everyone. Apparently magical injuries were no joke.

"Then Captain Marvel saved him!"

"Yep. She flew all the way out to space and saved them, and then he went home, and he…" Peter swallowed, not wanting to think about that part…how sad Mr. Stark must have been, and how it must have felt to be left behind…to have lost like that. To have lost him. "Then, he moved to this house with his wife, and they had a baby."

She grinned. "Me."

"You. And they named her…Molly?"

She giggled. "No!"

"Margaret?"

"No!"

"Mildred!"

She laughed aloud, kicking her feet. "No! That's not my name! My name's Morgan!"

"That's right!" He snapped his fingers like he'd just remembered. "They had a baby and they named her Morgan. The end."

"That's not the end!"

"Are you sure?" She giggled, shaking him, and he pretended that didn't hurt because it was worth it. "Okay, okay. Iron Man had a baby, and he named her Morgan, and he loved her so much. More than anything in the whole world. But then, when she was four years old, his friends came and found him, and they told him that they had a way to bring all the people back. And at first he didn't want to, because he was scared, but then he figured out how to travel through time, and together they all came up with a plan to save everyone. And guess what?"

"It worked?"

"That's right. It worked. But at the very end of the big fight, Iron Man had the magic glove that would make the bad guy go away. He was going to use it all by himself, but it would have hurt him a lot. Spider-Man didn't want him to get hurt, so he held his hand while he snapped his fingers to make the bad guys disappear, and they both scared the magic, so they both got hurt, but they both lived happily ever after."

She stared up at the ceiling with a contented smile, and he really wished he felt the same…he wished that it had all been just a story, and that he wasn't still so afraid. That he didn't still have nightmares almost every time he went to sleep and that he didn't panic when he woke in the middle of the night, afraid that it had all been a dream and that Mr. Stark was gone and so was May and everyone else he loved.

Like he'd sensed Peter's fear, Mr. Stark appeared in the doorway, lifting an eyebrow at Morgan. "Hmmmm…this doesn't look like your room…"

Morgan shrank back, a guilty smile on her face, and Peter grabbed a pillow and dropped it on top of her. "What do you mean, Mr. Stark? Are you looking for Morgan? She's not here. I was just resting all by myself."

Morgan giggled, curling up into a tiny ball under the pillow and Mr. Stark shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips until he couldn't help but chuckle. He still looked tired and sick, with bandages wrapped around his right arm and scars going up his neck. Peter had them too, branching out like the pain had, jagged lines that started at his arm and went from his shoulder to his torso and all the way down to his stomach and up his neck, but his shirts hid most of them. The right side of Mr. Stark's face would probably always have those scars, Bruce had told them, and his vision in his right eye wasn't great anymore, but Mr. Stark didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, looking at the two of them, Mr. Stark looked happier than Peter had ever seen him.

The man crossed the room on shaky legs, coming to sit on the edge of Peter's bed. "Oh really? Well, I was just looking for Morgan to see if she wanted a juice pop but if she's not in here I guess I'll have to eat it all by myself."

The girl gasped, sitting upright. "No, I'm here!"

He grinned, pulling her close with his good arm and kissing her hair. "That you are. It's a good thing, too. I almost had to eat all of them by myself."

"Did not!"

Mr. Stark chuckled. "Mommy has one for you in the kitchen." Jerking his head toward the door, the gave her one more squeeze, then the two of them watched her run out of the room. "I figured bribery was the only thing that was going to get her out of here short of padlocking your door."

"I'll bet she could learn to pick a lock…"

He snorted. "You're probably right." Hesitating, Mr. Stark looked him up and down. "How are you feeling, bud?"

Peter wanted to lie, but he was too tired and achy and sick…he hadn't been able to eat much for the last few days…some weird reaction to the magic he guessed, and Mr. Stark was the same. "Same. Tired. Sick. I hate magic."

"Tell me about it, Pete." Mr. Stark brushed his hair back, giving him a tired smile. "You want some crackers? Something to drink?"

"I'm okay. Is May still at work?"

Mr. Stark nodded. She had been traveling to the city with Happy three times a week to help out with a charity she was helping to found for people displaced by the second snap or anyone experiencing homelessness, and Peter thought that was super cool but he still missed her. "Yeah, Happy said she might stay in a hotel or stay with him this weekend…they need all the help they can get."

"I know it's…" His brain snapped back to attention. "Wait…with him?"

Mr. Stark wouldn't meet his eyes and Peter groaned, closing his eyes.

"Seriously?"

"What, you don't like Happy?" He could hear the smile in the man's voice and he wrinkled his nose, making him laugh out loud. "Don't worry. I don't think we'll hear wedding bells any time soon. I think they're just having some fun."

"Stop."

"You know, when two grown ups…"

"Please. God. Stop." He couldn't help his smile when Mr. Stark kept laughing though. Never before had he heard Mr. Stark laugh this much…never before had he seen him this happy. Even when Peter had first come to the lakehouse and had still had a fever, Mr. Stark had sat with him in a chair pulled from the living room, holding a cold cloth to his head and telling him all about his journey back from space. Peter was pretty sure he'd skipped over some bad parts, but he'd still laughed to hear his description of Nebula and how she'd eventually stared playing paper football with him.

"That old person game with the paper?" Peter had joked, and Mr. Stark had punched him so lightly on the shoulder he'd barely felt it.

"Watch it, Spiderling."

He'd told him about the time heist too, and how they'd gotten all of the Infinity Stones. He told him about losing Nat, and then when Peter asked, Mr. Stark told him all the stories he knew about Natasha…how she'd been a Russian spy but never talked about it. How she'd pretended to be his assistant, and how she'd saved his ass several times on missions. How she'd been his friend.

"She would have liked you. It would have been nice to have two spiders on the team."

Mr. Stark told him about the other team members too while he'd drifted in and out of consciousness, his body fighting to purge the magic in his system. He'd mentioned to Mr. Stark that it felt almost like he had when he'd gotten bit by that spider, the man had nodded. "Sounds about right. Apparently this is like radiation sickness…only stronger, since it's magic, and magic is the worst."

But Peter was already feeling better than he had been. He could actually keep food down, for one, and walking didn't feel so impossible anymore. He and Mr. Stark had started spending time sitting on the sofa in the living room where Morgan would sometimes join them for movies. Neither of them was quite well enough to go back to the lab just yet, but Peter knew they both wanted to.

He must have fallen asleep, he realized, because one moment he was listening to Mr. Stark chuckle softly and the next he was opening his eyes, glancing over to his right side to find Morgan sound asleep on the pillow beside him. And on his left side, Mr. Stark lay in the recliner, his hand resting gently on Peter's shoulder. He was happy too, he realized with a tired smile. He didn't regret it…even if the scars lasted for the rest of his life and he never got full use of his arm back, he knew that he would never, ever regret saving Mr. Stark's life.