I want to start by saying thank you. None of you hassled me for this chapter or for faster posting of While They Were Gone. I appreciate that. I had a tragic loss in my life in October and I needed to take a break from posting and writing while I tried to make sense of my life again.

I have good news: The Final Story Is Written!

It's the roughest draft and needs a lot of work, but the bones of the story are there so I can guarantee this series will not be left incomplete. So far Snowecat has read some and my dear friend Kikki has read it all and I've had positive feedback.

105. Return and Battle

May wrapped her arms around Peter and said, "Remember, honey, no matter what happens, we love you and are proud of you and we will always be here waiting for you."

Now, at the moment of parting from them again, Peter was reluctant to leave May and Ben. However, he was also almost out of his mind with excitement to know he was going back to the rest of his family. He had missed them all so much, and there was so much waiting for him when he got back. His little sister would be four now according to what Tony had told him before, and he would finally meet her! He couldn't wait. He'd thought about her since the moment he knew she existed.

Ben placed his hands on Peter's shoulders and said, "May's right, we're always going to be here waiting. But…" He glanced at May and then back to Peter, eyes becoming solemn. "And remember what I told you: with great power comes great responsibility."

Peter nodded. "I remember Ben. I always remembered."

"And be brave," May said, her eyes a little misty.

Peter nodded but didn't speak, as he had no words to explain how scared he was and would never use them if he did. He knew that there was going to be a battle when he got back, that it was going to be far worse than The Battle Of New York but that it wasn't only the Avengers fighting. May said that every hero in existence, from all over the universe, were going to be a part of that fight.

If Peter wasn't so scared, he would be excited.

He looked from May to Ben and said, "Thank you."

"No, thank you," Ben said solemnly.

Peter wanted to ask what he meant, but then the room around him shimmered, May and Ben's faces grew blurry and their voices calling to him echoed. Then he felt a weightlessness that started at his feet and crept up to his knees. He felt himself tipping forward and then a strange sense of displacement until sensation came back to him, beginning at his feet and shifting up his body to his head.

And then he heard a voice, one that he had dreamed of while he was gone, as he'd dreamed of the man to whom the voice belonged and the life he was living while Peter was gone.

"Oh, god, he's here! Pep, he's here!"

Peter opened his eyes, realizing as he did that he had eyes, that he wasn't just disembodied thought now, that he had ears to hear his father's voice.

He was lying on the hard rocky ground he'd been on when he died. He jumped to his feet and noted Doctor Strange was standing a few feet away, watching him with narrow-eyed speculation. Peter disregarded him, along with Quill, Mantis, and Drax, searching instead for Tony.

And he found him. He was standing twelve feet away from Peter, a hand over his heart and his other hand reached out, as if he wanted to touch Peter but made himself move closer to reach. Pepper was beside him, tears slipping down her cheeks and hand over her mouth.

Peter took a step towards them, a little lightheaded and heart thumping an erratic pace against his ribs, and their paralysis broke. With a cry from Pepper and a grunt, as if of pain, from Tony, they rushed at him. Their arms wrapped around him, pinning him between them, and their words of love rushed over each other.

"Honey, oh, thank god you're back! We missed you. Oh, god—"

"You're here. I've got you, you're here, and I've got you. Pete…"

"Dad," Peter sighed, drawing in their warmth and love like air into his lungs. "Mom…"

"Stark, we need to move," Doctor Strange said.

Peter felt the arms around him loosen reluctantly then there was the crunch of footsteps on the rocky ground, a snarled, "You should have given up the fucking stone!" and then a meaty thud.

Peter blinked, looking left to see that, yes, Tony was with him which meant it really had been Pepper who just punched Doctor Strange, leaving him wide-eyed and cradling his jaw.

"Nice," Peter Quill muttered, and Drax said, "The fire-haired lady really packs a punch."

"Pep," Tony said, and she rounded on him, eyes blazing.

"What?" she asked, chest heaving.

"Oh… nothing," Tony said, and Peter chuckled, earning a hug from Tony and a hard press of lips to his temple.

"If you're quite finished assaulting me…" Doctor Strange said pointedly.

"We are," Tony said. "Get us where we've got to go."

Pepper rushed to Peter side and said, "Did May and Ben tell you anything about this, honey?"

"Big battle. Scary aliens. Fate of the world," Peter said with forced cheer.

Tears appeared in Pepper's eyes and she whispered. "It's all going to be okay. You just… do what you can, and we'll take care of the rest."

Peter nodded. "That I can do."

Pepper smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then took Peter's hand and led him to the swirling circle of light Doctor Strange was creating.

"You ready, Pete?" Tony asked.

"Yep," Peter said. "I'm ready."

He stepped through the portal, Doctor Strange's words coming to him from a distance. "One future, Stark."

Peter wondered what that meant, but then he was through the portal and he could see Bucky and Steve running towards him and he stopped caring about futures and concentrated wholly on his present, which was the people he loved and the battle they were about to win.

The moment Peter stepped through the portal, Tony and Pepper flanking him, Steve and Bucky rushed forward as one and wrapped their arms around him.

Bucky made a sound that was half pain and half joy, and Steve drew a shaky breath and whispered Peter's name.

Coming back from the Soul Plane to be told what Peter had done to save Natasha had been harder than he could have imagined but what was worse was the silence on Peter's side of their connection. Bucky tried not to think about what Peter was going through at the bottom of that cliff for him to not be able to answer: the kindest explanation was that he was unconscious.

But he had to stow away his worry for that version of Peter, knowing there was nothing he could do for him yet, and focus on the reunion with the version of the kid that he'd not seen in five years.

Physically, there were only the smallest differences—just the brown eyes which held some youthful innocence his elder counterpart hadn't retained—but mentally Bucky could tell the two Peters were actually very different in ways that had nothing to do with the power they each possessed. This Peter had suffered with the attacks from Nemesis and the devastation of May's murder, but there was a level of darkness he'd not touched that his elder had almost drowned in following his time on The Raft when he had feared for the people around him so much that he had willingly locked himself away from them.

"Oh god," Peter said. "You're here. I missed you. Wow. I am so happy to see you."

"Us too," Steve said, his smile pronounced. "We missed you so much, Queens."

"We did," Bucky said. "You can't even imagine."

"No, I can," Peter said. "I missed you— I missed everyone so much. But we're all back. And I get to see Morgan." He bounced from foot to foot. "Steve, you've seen her, right?"

Steve chuckled. "I have. I've seen a lot of her, and I promise you, Queens, she is going to adore you."

"I already love her," Peter said. "And she's just been a face on a sketch. But…" He looked around at the amassed warriors and then cried, "Nat! They said you wouldn't be here!"

He peeled away from Steve and Bucky and ran at her. She threw her arms around him and pressed a hard kiss to his cheek. Peter could not see, but Bucky and Steve could, and Bucky felt a lump form in his own throat as Natasha's eyes filled with tears as Peter gabbled greetings and effusions on how happy he was to be with her again.

Bucky patted Steve's shoulder and then looked back at the army amassing behind them who thought they were going to be the death of them all. Bucky knew better, though. He knew how this battle would look and how it would end.

All he didn't know, and he tried to force back the question, was whether he and Peter would survive it.

"It's time, Pete," Tony said.

Peter extricated himself from Natasha's embrace to look back over his shoulder at the army he was about to face. His flushed face paled, and he nodded. And then something extraordinary happened. His eyes narrowed and Bucky saw the warrior he was going to be in his face.

He'd always thought it was The Stones that made Peter who he was following this battle, their influence was what turned him from superhero into something new. But now he saw it wasn't them at all. That side of Peter had always been there, and it was about to come out.

Perhaps it had been The Stones before, Bucky hadn't known him well enough to be able to tell, but Bucky saw here and now that The Infinity Stones weren't what changed Peter because the change had already happened.

Which meant the strength Peter had gained from The Stones was merely a metaphysical thing.

The true warrior had been Peter all along.

Tony knew this was going to be hard. He had known from the moment he realized he was going to live through this battle again that it was going to be hard. But it was going to be so much worse for Peter.

They stood in their amassed line, Thanos' forces opposite. Tony was on Peter's right, and Pepper on his left in the Rescue Armor. The rest of their family—Steve and Bucky, Rhodey and Sam, Wanda and Natasha, Clint and Thor—had positioned themselves around them, all of them poised to defend Peter as they had been since the moment Mind told them what their mission in 2016 was. Except, Peter didn't need to be defended. As much as Tony hated it, the gauntlet had to be fed into Peter's hands for fate to follow its path.

Thanos smiled, his hateful face amused by what he was seeing. A surge of loathing rose up in Tony and he wished he could be the one to end him—he wished it was him that would snap, that the death of all those enemies could be down to him to have his vengeance on the alien.

But it was not his job—it was his son's. All he could do was protect him until it happened.

Steve drew in a huge breath and shouted, "Avengers… Assemble!"

Tony remembered this last time, how Steve's battle cry had been the trigger for them all to surge forwards at once to fight, but there was one person that started a few seconds before the others, as though he knew he was the one destined to end this and wanted to get it done.

Peter ran forward, towards Thanos, a sound of anger never heard from him before ripping up his throat.

In that moment, Tony realized his son was ready for this fight, that he didn't need to be protected—he just needed the gauntlet.

Their ranks broke and they all ran after Peter, Tony and Pepper catching up with him in an instant, Rhodey right behind them, and then the battle began.

The aliens surged at them, their terrifying forms sending chills down Tony's spine. He didn't plan to leave Peter at all, but them a Leviathan flew overhead, and Steve said, "Tony? Rhodey? We need you to do something about that."

Tony spat a curse and said, "Got it," and flew up and into the Leviathan's mouth, feeling as though he was leaving part of himself behind on the ground with Peter.

Tony knew he wasn't the only one distracted on the battlefield. He noticed Bucky and Steve were fighting their way towards Peter with single-minded determination that earned them more hits that should have gotten, and it occurred to Tony that this was Bucky's life, too. Peter's fate was his fate. Tony could lose both his son and his friend today.

"Tony!" Rhodey's harsh voice came over the comms. "Leviathan on your right, my left. Want to give it a twin attack?"

"No," Tony said. "But I will."

He flew right toward the mammoth creature flying above them and met Rhodey at the head. "Going in," Rhodey said.

"I'm with you."

The Leviathan opened its mouth to snap them out of the air, and the pair of them flew in, bouncing off the sides of its stomach as their AI's homed in on a place to breech the skin.

"Tony!" Pepper cried, her fear evident in her voice. "Tony, he has it!"

Tony shouted a curse and heard Rhodey offer up his own. Peter had the gauntlet, which meant it was almost time.

They were about to discover if Peter would live or die.

"Boss, there is a weak spot on your immediate left," Friday reported.

"Thanks, Fri," Tony said. "Rhodey, it's time. We've got to get out."

"Got it," Rhodey said, voice strained.

Tony flew towards the spot Friday was highlighting on his HUD and he blasted the skin of the Leviathan and shot through the hole he'd created.

"Where is he?" Tony shouted, not speaking to anyone in particular, just needing an answer.

"Here," Pepper said, voice shaky. "In the crater."

Tony remembered the crater. He remembered Peter cowering in in and Carol landing in front of him. He remembered willing Peter to hand over the gauntlet and feeling sick when Peter put it on instead. He remembered powering towards him as fast as he could go but being too slow. He remembered begging Peter not to do it, and he remembered Peter doing it anyway.

He spotted them, Peter standing with the gauntlet on his arm and Pepper opposite him, though Pepper was not a bystander to this monumental moment. Instead, she was helping Bucky hold Steve back. It appeared Steve's resolution to let this happen the way it needed to happen had failed and he was trying to take Peter's place.

"Peter!" Tony shouted.

Peter turned to look at him, and Tony saw how scared he was, how pale he was beneath the grime of battle, the trickle of blood under his nose and the way his lip trembled.

"Dad," he said, and it was neither a plea for help nor a greeting.

It sounded horribly like a goodbye.

"Let me go," Steve roared, fighting against Pepper and Bucky's hold. "Queens, no!"

Peter looked at Steve, smiled slightly, then looked to Bucky, to Pepper, and back to Tony, and then he raised his hand, pressed his thumb and finger together, and snapped.

Tony flew towards Peter, too slow, again, as the enemy drifted away around them and Peter's scream tore through the air, echoing in Tony's ears.

He willed the rainbow light to appear, the shockwave that would blast him back. He needed proof that Peter was Worthy.

It didn't come.

Instead, he was blasted with green light that slammed into him and sent all else into darkness.

So… There we go. Finally. They're all back and Peter has snapped. I'll be back with the final chapter soon.

Until next time…

Jadey xxx