39
Chapter 39: the beginning of the consequences of deviationNotes:
1) Unfortunately, chapters will be posted less frequently from now on. My life is about to get 10x more hectic and I'll try to update whenever I can!
2) It'll be interesting to see where this fic goes considering there are like two major arcs that will occur. Still working out the order but I'll get to the action eventually.
3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He stared with wide eyes as he processed that they had won.
His heart jolted in his chest as he realised what it meant.
Staggering to his feet, he looked at Captain America's ruined armour. His left arm had been severely burned as well as part of his face. He lay against a piece of debris, finally resting after years of service.
Natasha kneeled in front of Steve before raising her trembling hands to his face, being mindful of his burns when he weakly grunted in pain. She murmured something before moving away to give Bucky space to talk to Steve.
Bucky's pained smile shook his core. He remembered being in the same position, trying to reassure Tony that they had won before his grief had won as Rhodey had moved him backwards so Pepper could talk to Tony.
Thump.
Forcing his breaths to come out evenly, he watched as the corners of Bucky's mouth lifted weakly as he talked to Steve.
Thump.
"I guess this is the end of the line, huh?" He asked quietly. "You did everything you needed to. It's the end of the day now. You can rest."
Thump.
Silence.
The fallout from the final battle was ugly.
The Compound had been destroyed, the damage seemingly too overwhelming to tackle. Clean-up crews had been sent on site a few hours after Thanos and his army had been dusted.
Well, that was what Karen had told him anyway. The past few hours had been too disorientating for him to sort through all the information he had been given.
He had followed the Avengers to a medical facility Tony had bought in 2022. All the staff working there had signed NDAs and were trusted by Tony to work alongside Stark Industries employees and provided healthcare to them as well since it was part of their contract.
The room he had been left in wasn't bad. The sharp smell of antiseptic cut through the air and he winkled his nose as it made the pounding in his head return. The lights had been dimmed so that his senses didn't react to too much external stimuli. The bed itself was comfortable – the mattress was soft enough that he sunk into it like he did when he was home. There was a TV in front of him and he had an IV to help his super healing.
He hadn't had the worst injuries on the battlefield. His thigh had been his worst injury and with the IV administered, his super healing had kicked in. Instead of the bloody crimson mess that had been there a few hours earlier, all that remained was a scarlet gash – well, that was what it had looked like before it had been wrapped. He doubted it would take longer than a day or two to heal.
Still, the ache remained, pulsating and crying out whenever he put weight on his leg. He had been put on bed rest for the rest of the day. It was probably for the best that he stayed in his designated room considering there were thousands of people rushing around trying to deal with the crisis that had been forced on them.
He couldn't say the forced bed rest was the worst thing he had been through. It gave him some time to work through what he had been through.
They had lost against Thanos in the Vault.
They had been dusted and all their work had been for nothing.
They had been brought back to life.
They had fought Thanos and his army and won.
Captain America had died.
Fuck, he couldn't wrap his head around it.
After all their preparation during 2016 and 2017, they had lost the first major battle. It was almost like some external force had wanted them to lose. They had warned the Nova Corps on Xandar! He didn't know how powerful they were, but surely they had fought against Thanos relatively well? He hadn't had any of the Infinity Stones in his possession at the time. How had he beat them?
Then came the Reality Stone. He wasn't sure how much they could have done to stop Thanos from getting the Reality Stone since the Guardians had been there and he had taken Gamora with him to get the Soul Stone.
…they had failed so badly when they had tried to stop Thanos from getting the Soul Stone.
Everything had been going well until Thanos used the Power and Reality Stones to shoot down Quill and Gamora. They had almost escaped!
If he dwelled on that any longer, he would drown in his guilt before he made sense of anything else.
Stephen had moved the Space Stone to Kamar-Taj to make sure Ned wouldn't be caught in the fray. What would have happened if they had moved it to Wakanda? Would it have delayed Thanos even more? Would he have taken it even earlier than before? Would he have come down, all guns blazing with his army and battleships?
If he asked Stephen to show him the outcomes- wait, shit, he couldn't. The Time Stone would be gone by the Time he had the chance to ask. Okay, different angle, what if he asked Stephen to tell him about the outcomes? Would it satiate his morbid curiosity?
What if he had taken the Space Stone from Thanos when he and the Guardians had attacked him in Wakanda? Would he have kept it? Would he have been able to wield it and fend off Thanos? He doubted it.
When he had taken the Soul Stone from Thanos in the Vault, it had been taken off of him as quickly as he had taken it. It seemed the universe didn't like the idea of him keeping an Infinity Stone.
He rolled his eyes. It seemed like the universe didn't like the idea of anything going his way until he was in the direst situation possible.
His eyes drooped as he yawned, his body aching despite the painkillers. His exhaustion took over from his overthinking brain and slowed everything down. He had planned on staying awake for as long as he could so he could reorientate himself with the world but he wasn't sure if he could follow through with that.
He had wanted to stay awake to see the aftermath and help but he wasn't in a state to do so. His body demanded sleep so it could heal, his limbs weighing him down like he was underwater and didn't have the energy to swim to the surface.
His eyes fluttered shut as he gave into his fatigue, comforting darkness carrying him away until his thoughts faded into silence.
"Miraculously, billions of people have been brought back from their previously 'dusted' status after the horrific Snap five years ago. A historical battle was fought at the ruined Avengers Compound after several space agencies detected unidentified objects which were found to be alien spaceships entered the atmosphere yesterday. There is no footage currently available to us and none of the Avengers have made a comment yet. This story is developing."
The news reporter's voice paraphrased the information as his voice droned on in the background, the noise filtering into his ears as he woke up.
Squinting as he opened his eyes, he winced against the harsh morning light. A familiar floral smell filtered in with the antiseptic that cut through his nose. A feminine voice muttered sentence he couldn't understand yet, his brain still too fuzzy to comprehend what was happening.
"No other deaths have been announced aside from Captain America's and the hundreds of Wakandan soldiers who helped save the universe. However, millions of people have been displaced from their homes, several struggling to reorientate themselves with how much the world has changed. There are conversations being held about creating an organisation funded by the UN and several governments to help with the mass hysteria that has been created."
"Oh god, how horrible." Wait, was that…?
"May…?" He croaked out; his throat parched from the lack of water.
"Peter?!" He weakly turned his head to the side to see May, her hair slightly frazzled and eyes wide. She had a patterned shawl wrapped around her -the one he had bought her in Wakanda- and leaned forwards from her chair to give him a hug.
His hands trembled as he slowly wrapped his arms around her, completely in disbelief at what was happening. Had May been Snapped? Had she survived and had to grieve? How had she managed to get to the hospital in all the chaos?
"H-how?" He slowly let go of her, fiddling with his fingers as he tried to swim through his chaotic thoughts. He didn't know what the state of the world was like, let alone what the date was.
"Wait, let me get you some water then I can explain everything." She quickly stood up and found a cup, filling it with water from a previously unopened bottle which he assumed was from a vending machine.
Slowly sipping his water so he didn't make himself sick, he listened to her explain what she had gone through over the past few hours.
"I'm still working out what happened, to be honest," she started. "One minute I'm standing in the hospital as I sign myself out of a shift, the next I'm standing in the middle of a maternity ward with nurses rushing around me! One of the nurses realised I had just…materialised into existence? That's the only way I can describe it." She frowned before shaking her head and continuing. "Anyway, they gave me a rushed explanation of what was happening before I decided to call Tony and ask him what was happening since whenever something massive happens, the Avengers deal with it in some way."
"Did he tell you where I was?" He asked quietly, slowly but surely filling everything together.
"Yeah, he sent Happy to pick me up and drive me here," she replied.
Ignoring his aching body, he pushed himself into a better sitting position to keep himself awake. Sleep's gentle tendrils wrapped around the edges of his body, begging him to go back to the blissful state he had been in before. He couldn't go back, not yet. Not until he caught up with everything he needed to.
"Is he here now?"
"No, he's babysitting Tony's daughter, Morgan." She blinked before taking in her own statement. "Wow, Tony has a kid. Can you believe it?"
Excitement flared in his chest and he let it bleed into his half-acting. "Really? Wow, I hope I get to meet her!"
He smiled, somewhat happy in knowing that similar events to the other timeline aligned themselves with this one. Tony had a family! He had Pepper and Morgan and they wouldn't lose him!
Hopefully, once a few things settled down and the state of the world wasn't in a panicked frenzy, he would be able to meet Morgan again. Sure, he would have to relearn a lot about the state of the world in case there were some major changes, but he would be able to keep some 'normalcy' in his life.
"Breaking news!" Both he and May turned to face the television. "Captain America's funeral date has been announced for the 9th of October, a week from today."
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Captain America had died. Steve Rogers had died in front of him on the battlefield while saving the universe and it was partially his fault because he had given him the glove formed from his nanobot suit-
"Peter, what happened on that battlefield?" May asked, snapping him out of his panicked mindset.
"Uh, I, well-" he stammered, struggling to find a place to start. Did he start with the battle in Wakanda? Did he start when he was brought back into existence? Did he say what he did on the battlefield and how he wielded Thor's hammer even though apparently it wasn't the same as Steve wielding it?
"You don't have to say all of it." May soothed him. "For now, just say whatever you want to say."
"Well, I came back into existence in the same way you did, I guess," he replied. He still wasn't sure if all of him came back the way he was (mentally) supposed to. "Stephen- ah, I mean, Doctor Strange, he's a sorcerer, opened a portal in Wakanda and talked to King T'Challa before getting the army prepared – wait, I didn't explain why I was in Wakanda, did I?" May shook her head. "Oh."
Sighing, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before bracing himself to do a brief summary of what happened before the final battle. Then he explained a shorter version of what had happened while he was fighting, deciding not to mention when he was shot out of the sky multiple times in that battle and how he was the one to give Steve the nanobot gauntlet instead of finding another way to defeat Thanos.
There were two other ways! Stephen had said there were three chances they could have taken and he wasn't even sure if they were in the timeline with the best outcome. Guilt swirled in his chest as he finished his story, letting May process everything he had said.
Had he been the one to kill Steve? Was he at fault for not taking the stones out of the gauntlet when he had the chance and wield them there and then? Should he have done that and stopped anyone else from dying? Should he have been the one to die?
His head filled itself with doubts about what he could have done, how he could have changed what happened in that battle. Had all his actions been for naught? Had he spent so much time trying to change things that he hadn't thought about the final battle and what he should have done then?
His muscles tensed slightly when May ruffled his hair, stopping his spiralling thoughts. She had always been good at distracting him when he spiralled to the point he met the void.
"I can hear your brain going into overdrive," she said. "Let yourself rest; you've done more than earned it."
He nodded, but internally he wondered if he agreed with her.
With a lot of help from Pepper and an overnight stay at an overcrowded FEAST, he and May managed to get their apartment back overnight. All of their personal belongings had been put into a storage unit by Tony and had been shipped over from Manhattan in the span of a few hours.
Luckily, their apartment had been up for sale by the previous tenants who had moved in around 2019 and had listed their apartment a couple of months ago. They had been given back their home with little hassle compared to last time.
After six hours of moving furniture up several flights of stairs and placing it where it used to be, then moving the boxes filled with all of their belongings from 2018, they had made the apartment their home again.
He couldn't wrap his head around what was happening. How had they been this lucky? Parker Luck liked to screw them over on a good day, even if it was his lace undoing itself a minute after he had tied it.
Lying down on his bed, he fiddled with his phone as he debated calling Ned and MJ. Could he call them or would they be busy sorting out their lives? Should he wait to see them at school?
Biting his tongue to ground himself as he opened his phone, he forced himself to stop thinking and pressed Ned's contact, waiting for Ned to pick up.
Riiiiiiing.
Maybe he should hang up.
Riiiiiiing.
Would Ned be free?
Riiiiiiing.
Had Ned been Snapped?
Riiii-
"Peter?!"
He sighed with relief before replying. "Ned, are you okay?!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely fine! Lola didn't get turned to dust so we didn't have too many problems getting our home. What about you?"
"Our apartment was on sale already and Tony shipped all our stuff over from a warehouse in Manhattan."
"It wasn't as bad as last time?"
"No. Well, moving stuff wasn't as bad."
"The battle?"
He hesitated. Did he really want to tell Ned about the battle and how he had the Infinity Stones within his grasps and he didn't take his chance?
"It didn't go as badly as last time. You've seen the news right?" He wouldn't tell Ned right now. Maybe he would say what happened when MJ was with them.
"Yeah. I mean, who hasn't at this point?" He huffed at that. "Still, I can't believe Captain America is dead…" he trailed off, leaving them both in silence for a few seconds. "You weren't injured too badly?"
"Uh…" He took stock of his injuries, working out what he would and wouldn't tell Ned. He didn't need to worry him any more than he already was. "The Chitauri injured my thigh but it's better now. Otherwise, I'm fine." Ned hummed disbelievingly but didn't press on the issue, leaving him to wonder what he could say to bring up the mood before he thought of something. "Oh wait, I didn't tell you!"
"What?"
"I wielded Thor's hammer!"
"No way!" Ned exclaimed. "Like, you picked it up and threw it?"
"Yeah, pretty much! I didn't even realise until he held it out to me and told me to hold it."
They gushed on about Asgardian magic and how Peter was (somehow) worthy of wielding Thor's hammer. There had been plenty of speculation about Mjolnir after 2012 after the thunder god's first appearance on Earth since the Norse mythology had proved true.
"According to mythology," Ned said as he read out from a website over the phone, "you can use it if you need it in that moment if you're willing to kill, but you also need to know to lay down your weapons when they are no longer needed while trying to protect someone."
"Seems fair." He shrugged. "Thor did say there was something different to me using it, especially since Captain America wielded it. Maybe that's the difference?"
"What, like you used it but he wielded it?"
"Sounds like it. I don't know, I'll ask Thor if I get the chance. I don't think I'll be able to use it again though."
"Why not?"
He shrugged even though he knew Ned wouldn't see it. "I used it to whack a bunch of Chitauri way from me while I was holding the Infinity Gauntlet. Desperate times called for desperate measures and I don't think I'll be in a situation that desperate again."
"Let's hope you're not."
They carried on talking until Ned's mother called him away for something, leaving him alone with his thoughts once more.
Too many braincells
Me
Are you both free on
a week from today?
MJ <3< strong>
I should be
Moving stuff in will take
a while tho
I've gotta check
Me
Ok
Ned
Should be
Me
Wanna come to mine?
Ned
Sure
MJ <3< strong>
Yep
Closing the group chat, he let his phone fall into his lap as he contemplated what to do with himself. May wouldn't allow him to go out as Spider-Man with his still healing wounds, MJ was still busy unpacking all her belongings that had been stored away over the past 5 years, Tony was busy sorting out Captain America's funeral with the government.
He felt out of place.
It was a similar feeling to what he had felt in the other timeline after he had come back. The world was in an awkward place of being in the middle of mass hysteria while being in the future with billions of people who still felt like they were in 2018.
Midtown's administration was working out what to do with the sudden influx of students who had been dusted in 2018 only to return and need education again. He would probably receive an email in a couple of days informing him he had a place and would need to go back on the 20th of October once everyone settled-
Wait, he had future threats he needed to deal with!
Launching himself off his bed with a renewed sense of urgency, he found a sticky note and a pen and jotted down all he could remember that would affect him this year.
-Scorpion (alien tech again)
à check with Aaron
-Fisk (drugs)
He paused, wondering if Daredevil had been Snapped like in the previous timeline. If he had survived, there was a good chance the crime rates had stayed down.
-Mysterio…?
Would Beck decided to appear? Tony hadn't died so there was no need for anyone to fill the gap, right?
He frowned. He could be completely wrong. Tony deserved to retire and spend time with his family, but that could also mean Mysterio would make his grand appearance anyway. Peter wouldn't get the EDITH glasses and he already knew what Beck would try to do if the fake Elementals started to appear. Besides, he could contact Stephen if there were actual Elementals. The Europe trip wouldn't be for another 8 months anyway.
Starting up his computer, he spent the next few hours catching up with everything he had missed. Toomes had almost escaped from the prison with some external help from 'unknown' criminals, but he would be it was Scorpion trying to break him out to cause more havoc in a post-Snap world. After that, the Raft had increased its security by tenfold and no one had made an escape attempt since. He shivered at the idea of Vulture escaping. He would be the first person on his list to be targeted and he doubted that would end prettily.
TikTok had risen to fame, the Area 51 raid had happened -he chuckled when he remembered that Tony owned Area 51- and hours passed as he caught up with most of what he had missed, making sure to keep his thoughts about his past 48 hours buried for as long as he could. He didn't want to spiral like he had in the hospital and end up close to a panic attack.
Once his wounds had fully healed, he would immediately go back to patrolling. He couldn't afford to spend months holed up in his apartment like he had in the last timeline. There were people to meet and save from muggers and make sure they found shelter if they were one of the millions who had been displaced in New York.
The Snap had thrown the world into chaos and it had taken a few years to settle into a form of normalcy. Normalcy had been thrown out the window after the other half of the universe had returned and now people needed heroes to bring them safety, even if it came down to providing some advice and walking them to the FEAST centre.
He had no more world ending threats to deal with for now.
All he needed to do was help the little guy.
Notes:
If you were to write Steve's funeral, would it be in a private setting with just the Avengers or a public one being televised to the nation?