Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it came from the films or the comics, even if I flatter myself that I've put my own spin on things.

Feedback: All constructive comments or appreciative observations are welcome

The First and the Last

Even when she looked back on the initial decision, Carol wasn't sure if it had been her or Peter who originally suggested that they go to Edinburgh for this particular impulsive holiday, but once the idea of taking a weekend off was out there it had been a surprisingly easy choice. Flying out to the other side of the planet wasn't exactly hard when she had her ship available, and so long as she and Peter didn't do anything too big she didn't see why anyone should make a big deal about it. The trip would only be for a weekend as Peter didn't feel comfortable leaving New York for that long in case something came up, but with Carol's ship to cut down on the travel time there wasn't anything to worry about.

Looking at Peter as he took in the buildings as they walked along Princes Street, Carol allowed herself to smile as she noticed his own smile. She could guess what he was appreciating about this particular visit, as the city gave an interesting sense of being large and small at the same time, far shorter than the skyscrapers Peter in particular would be used to seeing in New York but not so small that he would just feel like he was back in Queens. Carol had to appreciate the contrast between the large shops on one side and the open area of Princes Street Gardens on the other, giving the city a sense of peace that she'd found so hard to find on other planets where they seemed to have an 'all or nothing' approach when it came to creating places to live.

A part of Carol wondered if it made her a bad girlfriend if she was taking holidays with a friend rather than her 'romantic partner' (she wasn't sure if what she had with Will qualified him as her 'boyfriend' yet), but she reminded herself of all the times she'd gone off with Maria before everything happened with the Tesseract and told herself not to worry about it. Things were relatively quiet out in the wider galaxy as far as her contacts could confirm, there was nothing urgent to deal with on Earth in general or New York in particular, and it wasn't as though William knew about all of her 'extras' yet and she wasn't ready to share that stuff with him just yet.

Besides, it wasn't like it was 'wrong' to go anywhere with Peter on his own right now; he was a legally emancipated adult who was staying at school to complete his education and had a legitimate means of income from his semi-official 'internship' with Stark Enterprises, so there was nothing wrong with him flying off for a while. She wasn't sure of the legalities of taking a private flight like this, but when she had a very fast ship and wasn't intending to do anything more than visit a couple of tourist spots, it didn't strike her as that much of a crime to bypass a few bits of paperwork when they only intended a quick holiday.

Even parking the ship had been easy enough, with a few hills around the city providing a suitable place for them to leave the vehicle once Carol turned on its cloaking device (the ship couldn't cloak itself during a fight but it was a good way to stay undetected). The two had come to an unspoken agreement to use the ship as a resting place rather than book a hotel, which left them free to head into town and enjoy the sights after a brisk walk in the Pentlands from the landing site. Peter had never thought of himself as the type to enjoy exercise like that, but after the months he'd spent swinging around New York there was something refreshing about the simplicity of a good hike, even if it probably helped that he was a lot fitter and had a better sense of balance than he'd been before the spider bit him. They had the option of getting back out to the ship by Carol flying if they were short on time, but they both enjoyed the walk over the hills and the subsequent bus into town.

The city was noticeably less crowded than New York, but post-Snap basically everywhere was less crowded than it had been, even if most places had gotten past the worst of the initial trauma to try and return to some level of the previous normality by now. Carol had heard a few rumours about this local theatrical arts festival that had been cancelled from its usual summer event because so many of the scheduled acts had been lost in the Snap, but there were apparently plans to start it again next year…

"Any preference?" she said, after she and Peter had been walking along Prince's Street for a few moments to take in the sites.

"Huh?" Peter looked back at her.

"For what we do now," Carol said with a casual smile. "I mean, I don't think we've got time to do something you'd have to pre-book, but there's still a few other options."

"Yeah…" Peter nodded, before his gaze shifted to Edinburgh Castle on the other side of the Gardens. "Start big and work our way back?"

"Works for me," Carol nodded with a smile. "Nothing wrong with a bit of history, anyway."

"Do they have that kind of thing on other planets?" Peter asked as they turned to walk up the Mound towards the Castle. "Historical buildings, I mean."

"It… like on a few other worlds, it comes and goes," Carol shrugged. "Like I said before, some cultures place less importance on the past than we do; maybe they just demolish a place like that, maybe they build it over to make something more modern…"

"Kinda sad," Peter said.

"It's all a matter of opinion, really," Carol said. "I don't stick around most planets long enough to ask those kind of questions when dealing with my enemies, and when I'm dealing with my allies… well, I do some research if I need to understand the context of a situation, bust most of the time my allies and I have other things to focus on."

Peter wasn't sure what to say to that, but considering what he'd heard about the kind of things Carol had dealt with in her travels, he could understand if she hadn't always had time to look into the histories of other planets.

"And then there's a few worlds out there that are basically just tombs," Carol said, as they reached the end of the road around the gallery and began to walk towards a crossroads. "I even heard…"

"Heard what?"

"There's a world… Morag… where the population basically died out centuries ago," Carol said, an awkward expression on her face as though she wasn't sure if she should be talking about this even if she was committed now. "The planet's mostly ignored because it's still a bit of a geological hazard if you're not careful once you get to the surface, but it still has a few ruins scattered around… including one place where someone left one of the Infinity Stones."

"Seriously?" Peter looked at her with new shock. "Someone left one of those things on a dead planet? Without anyone actually trying to protect it?"

"It was more of a rumour of some powerful thing on a potentially dangerous planet; nobody took it totally seriously before Thanos's forces stepped up their efforts, and Morag's reputation was enough to keep most people from making a serious effort to search anyway."

"That… makes sense," Peter nodded carefully. "A bit like… why you didn't go after Thanos yourself earlier, right? Nobody was really sure if there was anything worth going after on Morag, so nobody really went to the effort of going after it?"

"And by the time enough people knew anything for sure, the Stone had been moved somewhere else for greater safety," Carol nodded, before she smiled as they began to walk up the final street towards the castle. "Anyway, we can't focus on that part of the past, right?"

Peter thought about making another comment about that, but right now he was going to focus on their holiday. Maybe it was odd to agree not to focus on the past when they were about to visit a historical site, but he got Carol's point that they weren't here to focus on their own past mistakes.

After receiving a couple of audio players from the entrance, the next couple of hours were spent walking through the castle, taking in some of the historical buildings and listening to the audio tour. Peter found himself particularly enjoying the tale of the history of the Honours of Scotland, appreciating the significance of those items and the efforts put in to keep them safe during Oliver Cromwell's revolution. Looking at the Crown, the Sword and the Sceptre as they lay in their glass case, Peter suddenly regretted that America didn't have any relics with the same kind of significance as these (OK, there was the Declaration of Independence, but that was still a lot 'younger' than any of these things). The site of the large cannon 'Mons Meg' in particular provided an interesting look at how weapons had developed over the centuries, followed by a simple wander through the National War Museum. The historical rooms were at least academically interesting to view, even if history hadn't always been Peter's main interest.

The tour of the castle concluded, Peter and Carol left the building and headed back down the mound. There were a few other restaurants along the Royal Mile, but the two had already previously decided to visit the Conan Doyle off York Place on the other side of Prince's Street. It was a reasonable walk from the castle, but Carol had already called ahead to book them a table, enjoying both the idea of eating typical British pub food and enjoying the link to Sherlock Holmes. She and Peter were each aware that they weren't exactly master detectives, but that didn't mean that they couldn't admire the character's ability to outsmart his enemies and expose the likes of Professor Moriarty. The pub was a bit too loud to properly talk about more personal matters, but they were able to share their thoughts on the trip so far and decide where they'd go next.

Having finished that particular meal, the two took a trip out to Leith to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia, each interested in seeing an example of 'local' engineering. The ship itself was relatively straightforward in design, but the scale of it was impressive by any standards, and it was interesting to know that they were walking where other famous figures had walked in the past. Peter's knowledge of engineering was generally more about computers and personal hardware, and Carol's expertise was obviously focused on smaller flying craft, but they didn't need to be experts to appreciate the scale of the ship. There was something fascinating in being able to explore it all in one walk, looking at the engines or the cabins and thinking about how the likes of the Queen or Winston Churchill had travelled on this ship back in the day before it was decommissioned.

Once they had finished at the Britannia, they still had enough time to visit the Botanic Garden before it closed and have a walk around the open greenery (they slightly 'cheated' by having Carol take them on a quick flight to a point closer to the main entrance, but so long as she stayed low and nobody looked up she didn't generate enough energy for it to be a problem, and the garden was free anyway). As they walked through the heart of the park, Carol was amused to see Peter looking at some of the taller trees as though he would have liked to swing from them, but he restrained the urge despite lifting his wrists a couple of times as though he was about to fire off a web-line but lowering them at the last moment.

"Always tempting to show off, huh?" she said to him in a low voice after they passed another high tree.

"More like I don't get to go to these kind of places often and I'd like to experience it," Peter shrugged in response, even as he kept his voice low as well. "I mean, swinging from buildings is fine, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to… do a bit of a Tarzan, I guess?"

"You saw that movie?"

"I saw the Disney version," Peter admitted.

"Disney did a version of Tarzan?"

"Yeah, they- oh, right, you weren't on Earth when it came out… and you watched Disney movies?"

"What kid didn't?" Carol pointed out with a smile. "I mean, I wouldn't have minded it if Snow White or Cinderella were tougher, but… OK, I was in my teens when it came out, but Robin Hood had a certain appeal…"

"Yeah, you left in… the 1980s, right?" Peter recalled her tale of how she had ended up with the Kree, trying not to think about how old Carol would have to be for that to work (even if she definitely didn't look like an old woman of any kind). "Well, they've had… OK, a few interesting ones since then; May and Ben certainly encouraged me to check them out to… get a few new ideas…"

"Oh?" Carol grinned over at him. "Such as?"

"Uh… hey, come on; we're losing time here!" Peter called out, hurrying on ahead and trying to find something new to look at. Carol allowed herself to smile at his discomfort without letting herself analyse the issue more closely before she followed after him, once again focused on their holiday.

Still focused on keeping their cover for another day, they decided not to go for a restaurant at the moment, instead grabbing a couple of boxes of Chinese food from a take-away they passed on their way back to the Pentlands. Catching a bus to the town outskirts, the two then walked the rest of the way back to the spot in the hills where they had left Carol's ship, simultaneously appreciating the view from the other end and determined to get back to the ship before it got too dark to see properly. Carol was able to heat up the food with her own powers easily enough, and after eating from the boxes, the two basically collapsed on their beds, Peter spinning himself a web hammock with one of his more long-lasting webbing variants while Carol rested on her bed. The two didn't even bother changing out of their clothes for the night, even if they each discreetly entered the ship's bathroom to change the following morning.

Wearing a change of clothes, the two caught another bus into town. After a stop-off at a café in Morningside to grab a quick cooked breakfast, Peter and Carol went to the National Museum, which included a detour to visit the nearby statue of Greyfriars Bobby. Even if neither of them were precisely dog people and there was some debate about whether the tale of the dog had been real, it didn't stop the whole story from being a touching example of a loyal pet's devotion to its master. The museum itself was a bit smaller than the Museum of Natural History back in New York, but it wasn't without its appeal, offering a nice range of historical artefacts and some well-preserved animals.

Following another stop-off at a small café for a bite to eat (Peter had been uncertain about taking a look at the cathedral where some of the other Avengers had fought some of Thanos's minions before everything went wrong, so they didn't take it further), the two caught a bus to the city outskirts to visit Roslynn Chapel. Peter had only been casually interested in The Da Vinci Code when it first came out, and Carol had only skimmed through the film as part of her attempts to catch up on modern popular culture in her past visits, but the whole situation had been popular enough that they both essentially felt obliged to visit the chapel in person while they were in Edinburgh, even if it was just to say they'd seen it. The chapel was relatively simple in some ways, but the elaborate stone carvings were definitely impressive considering the age of the structure. Peter was particularly surprised to read that there were actually 'genuine' rumours of there being some secret area in the chapel, even if nobody had been able to find anything.

That last visit made, Peter and Carol were able to catch another bus into town with enough time to climb Arthur's Seat. The hill was a simple climb by some standards, but it was enough for Peter and Carol to stretch their legs and take in a view of the city from the top. Peter was embarrassed to find himself looking at Carol's rear end on a couple of moments when she was leading the way up the hill, but she didn't seem to notice (Peter was not going to let himself think about the idea that she might not mind that look).

Once that particular hike had been completed, Peter and Carol caught another bus back towards the Pentlands. On this occasion, they stopped in Colinton, a former village that had been integrated into Edinburgh some time ago, and managed to get a table in a small Italian restaurant. The staff were friendly enough, and the food proved to be very enjoyable, including pizza, steaks, and a plate of pasta.

"Always good to see these kind of places thriving," Carol observed as she ate her next piece of pizza. "William was commenting on the challenges of keeping the restaurant business going after the Snap…"

"William?"

"Uh… kind of my… boyfriend, I guess?" Carol said, her expression suddenly tentative as she looked at Peter, only just realising that she hadn't mentioned that particular detail before now. "I mean, we've just had a couple of dates so far, but it's been… he's good company…"

"Oh," Peter said, lost for how to respond to that statement as he found himself stirring the spaghetti on his plate. "Yeah, that… that's nice; I had a few dates with… well, there was this girl in my class…"

"Girlfriend?" Carol smiled at him.

"Just… a friend," Peter shook his head briefly. "Debra's nice enough, but she… she had a lot of problems… there was some stuff in her past she wasn't ready to share with me, and I…"

"You couldn't help her?"

"I… if she wasn't ready to tell me what the problem was, I wasn't sure I was really in a good position to help her with any of it," Peter said, looking shamefully down at his plate. "I just… maybe that's selfish…"

"It's human," Carol said, reaching over to place a hand on his shoulder. "I know you, Peter; if you ever chose not to help someone, it's because you're sure you can't do anything to help them."

Was it wrong of Peter to be so reassured by those particular words from this particular person? He wanted to think that he would have felt the same way if he'd been offered those kind of supportive words from May or Mr Stark before… everything happened… but there was just something deeper about the way he responded to Carol's words… the way he wanted to respond…

She has a boyfriend, he reminded himself, once again refusing to over-analyse how that thought made him feel. She has a boyfriend, and that's good… we're just two friends having a good time…

It had been an impulsive couple of days' holiday, but Peter had enjoyed it, and he had to hope that Carol felt the same way… even if she could never know just how much he had appreciated this time with the woman who had saved his life…