InsaneJournal

Who: Dr. Strange, Peter Parker, Tony
What: Peter arrives in an alternate universe
When: Thursday Jan 24th
Rating/Notes: Green, backdated

Something wasn't right.

The hair had begun to stand up on Peter's arms just seconds before his companions on Titan started to crumble into dust around him. His senses were running on overload; his ears were ringing and the nausea rolling around his stomach reminded him of what it felt like to stand on the shifting deck of the Staten Island Ferry. But he wasn't in New York anymore, far from home on an alien planet where he couldn't race off to find May like every warning alarm in his brain was begging him to. There was no one left except he and Mr. Stark and Nebula, and as Peter raised his shaking hands to look at his palms, he knew in his gut it whatever threat had found them was coming for him now.

Peter couldn't help stumbling towards the person who hadn't failed to fix things for him when he'd needed it most. Mr. Stark would have an answer. He always had an answer, and yet the frozen fear in his mentor's eyes confirmed what Peter already knew: there would be no getting out of this one. His aunt May, Ned, MJ - how could he never see them again? Staying behind on that spaceship had meant taking a risk he thought he'd been prepared for, but that didn't mean he'd ever be ready for it - that didn't mean he'd ever be ready to leave behind a life unlived.

I'm sorry. The words followed him to wherever he went, a place of formlessness that he couldn't get a grasp on. It was grey and silent until it wasn't, and awareness slammed back into Peter with the force of a dying star. He heaved in a breath, knees and palms scraping against pavement as he tried to remember who and what he was. Peter. His name was Peter, his aunt was May, and he was - had been - Spider-man. He was a boy from Queens who had been swept away into gritty particles on a wisp of wind. Oddly enough, the air here wasn't as acrid as it had been on Titan. It was thick with the smog of a city, his city.

Though his mask was off and his battered Iron Spider suit was on, Peter barely noticed either. People bustled past him on the busy street as if the world hadn't been just ending; a few crouched beside him to ask if he was okay before moving on. He wasn't. He wasn't okay, and he didn't know how to trust that all of this wasn't a dream. How could he trust anything before him when his life had just been extinguished in the blink of an eye?

Along the lines of things most people wouldn't trust if they saw them, was Earth having sorcerers. Or a Sorcerer Supreme that cast a spell net over the city for when someone crash-landed or woke up to the fact this was an alternate reality. It took only one minute before a familiar looking spark of fireworks began in mid-air, spinning until it was a circle hung in midair, the interior of which showed what looked like a creepy museum. Emerging through the portal with his cloak holding him aloft was Dr. Strange. He landed silently in front of Peter as the portal closed in on itself, and the cape raised up one bottom corner for a little wave.

"Hello again, Mr. Parker," Stephen said. His voice was that same low, vaguely acerbic tone reminiscent of a college professor that was trying to teach complicated math to a classroom of frat boys with a hangover. Even if the voice was dry as a bone, his eyes weren't. As he looked down at Peter, he began to kneel down to take stock from a physician's standpoint. Shortness of breath, presenting as pale and clammy, and it was a safe bet that there were heart palpitations and enlarged pupils. Classic signs of an anxiety attack.

If Peter was having one, it was with good reason. Dying and turning to dust tended to leave a lasting memory. Stephen lived through it in this universe as well. It was something they couldn't prevent, and they were lucky to come back at all.

Stephen rested a hand on Peter's shoulder and said in an even lower voice, "You're all right. I want you to know that's not going to happen to you again. You need to take some deep, slow breaths before I take you somewhere safe. Nod if you understand."

As the city street resumed business with many only wanting to get on with their day, Peter’s awareness remained painfully heightened. The sun was too bright even as it only peeked from behind the clouds, and the sound of voices slid under his skin like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Worst of all was his heartbeat that thundered through every inch of him. He’d never really thought about what would come after, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t a crowded Manhattan street on a work day, a jarring contrast to the eerie silence on Titan before he’d crumbled into nothing. It had been so quiet there. It had been quiet in death, too, and that had scared him most of all.

He saw the cape first before his limbs could even cooperate enough to stand. It was familiar, and the sight brought back a flurry of the past he’d half-forgotten in his panic. It was that cape he and Mr. Stark had been chasing, and that cape had been attached to a man - the same one who spoke to him now.

Peter tried to reply, but all that came out was a gasp for air like he’d been punched in the gut. He curled his palms against the rough pavement, struggling to block out the memories of what it had felt like to watch his own ashes scatter to the sky. The hand on his shoulder brought him the slightest bit of anchoring, but not enough. He couldn’t even remember the wizard’s name, just that he’d done things - incredible things - that had had defied every law of physics that Peter thought he knew.

Deep breaths, right. Peter was slowly beginning to realize that he could. One inhale came and then another, and after a handful he finally let himself look up. Strange. That was it - and the Doctor had disappeared into dust too. Shit. Maybe they all really were dead, then, and he tried to steer away from the thought before it brought his near hysteria rushing back. As soon as he was certain he could move without emptying the contents of his stomach, Peter’s head moved in a faint nod, both acceptance and confirmation that he’d heard.

Strange was honed in on Peter the entire time, that hand still resting on his shoulder until the teenager was more focused. He gave him a wry smirk, as though if any vomiting happened? It was going to be the second time this month that it happened in front of him. Overall, it was too many times to count throughout his entire medical career.

This kid was smart. He remembered their planning on Titan, and being saved on the Q Ship from the alien that Stark dubbed as "Squidward." He also remembered saying he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice them both to protect the Time Stone. Did he feel bad about that? Not really. If it came down to it, he would make the same choice again. He only gave it up, because there was no other way. He didn't even know what that way was either.

To save on stress, he wasted no time explaining to Peter, "You're not dead here. Long story short, is you've essentially been bled over from a prime universe into a parallel alternate universe. A divergence. Titan didn't happen. Thanos didn't complete his gauntlet."

His voice was calm and assured, his hand patted Peter's shoulder with all the care that one would take if their hands were mostly comprised of metal pins and rods.

"I know that's a lot to process, and I know you like movies. You wouldn't stop talking about the Aliens plan before we crash landed. Here we go. Star Trek. Two thousand nine. Zachary Quinto as young Spock and Leonard Nimoy as old Spock. You're old Spock traveling through an artificial black hole and suddenly ending up in a new universe, and taking the place of this world's young Spock. Nod or say something if you understand that. Even vaguely."

If Wong was wrong about trying to use Star Trek to explain things, Stephen wasn't going to go with that next suggestion: Hot Tub Time Machine.

There were limits. That was one of them.

You’re not dead here.

It was a difficult thing to believe, and it took a moment to sink in. Peter dug his fingers hard into his palms and felt a very real sting of pain, solid and true to the touch. One of his last memories was of watching his own hand dissipate where it had been gripping Tony’s shoulder - and that was inexplicably restored now along with the rest of him, on pins and needles with the leftovers of his panic. But if he wasn’t dead here, then what about -

"What about back there? Did we - did we lose?"

His voice was no more than a croak, and he swallowed roughly, grimacing at the sandpapery feel to his throat. God, he hoped that wasn’t dust that had been part of him or anyone else. The thought had his stomach lurching again, his focus spiraling in a million directions. The idea of a parallel universe would have been so cool if the one he’d left hadn’t ended in the stuff of nightmares.

The Star Trek analogy was a language he could understand. His Uncle Ben had taken him to see it at least four times, and Peter had dreamed about what it would like to go to space for a long while after that. The reality hadn’t been anything at all like the movies, much as his appreciation for Alien had proved useful in the end. At least dying hadn’t involved any creatures hatching their murderous egg spawn inside him; he had to count the small mercies where he found them.

"So I’m Spock. Wow," Peter said hoarsely, struggling to comprehend what he was being told. People continued to walk around them, muttering a thing or two about Halloween having come too early. Peter still barely registered their surroundings. A breath came out in a rush as he shook his head, briefly burying his face in his hands. "That’s - that’s just not an excuse my aunt’s gonna buy. In the other universe. Cause if I don’t come back, she’s going to kill me. Even if I’m already gone there. You’re sure we’re not dead? Or dreaming?"

Finally. An explanation that worked, but one that only those familiar with pop culture and sci-fi references would understand. He smirked and patted his hand down on Peter's shoulder. Twice. Pat pat. Still calm and collected, Stephen issued his final diagnosis, "You're solid and very much alive, Mr. Spock."

It was only when Peter was able to speak that he saw fit to withdraw his hand. Peter speaking was a state that Stephen would describe as mouth vomit, rivaled only by the likes of Tony Stark. It was also one step closer to some semblance of normal, which is where he was trying to get Peter to.

"Cool suit, bro," one young man said, pausing to sip coffee and nod in approval. "Your dad's cosplay is cool too."

"Thanks. We're on our way to a comic con event," Stephen said dryly.

"I didn't know there was a con," the man replied before sipping his coffee again. As fate would have it, a fellow nerd crossed paths with them.

Dr. Strange looked like he was on the verge of portaling coffee guy into the middle of Central Park. Instead, he came up with a reasonable excuse, "It's a comic con themed birthday party. My son's developed a bad case of gastroenteritis, so it looks like we'll be heading home."

"Bummer! Get well soon."

Due to a cold stare from Strange, the man seemed to get the hint that further conversation was going to be awkward. He gave them both a toasting motion with his Starbucks cup as he walked away.

It wasn't until the interloper was well out of earshot that Stephen spoke again, "If you're feeling nauseated, putting your mask on is a bad idea. We've got to get you somewhere safe. Your aunt's place isn't it. So as soon as you can stand, I'll take you to Stark."

As comforting as Strange’s assessment of his continued life was, Peter couldn’t stop wondering and worrying about his aunt - about Ned and MJ and everyone back home he’d apparently left behind. He instinctively wanted to go back to his universe and make things right, but if that was even remotely an option, he didn’t think Strange would be giving him this spiel at all. The dimensional upheaval made his head hurt more than it was already pounding, and thankfully for him and the Doctor both, the passerby briefly distracted Peter from unleashing another barrage of questions.

Peter found himself laughing weakly at Strange’s explanation, not having to pretend much to look the part of the gastroenteritis excuse. He moved until he could lean his head between his knees, shielding his face somewhat, managing to mumble a ‘thanks, dad’. The coffee drinking stranger might have believed they were a familial pair on the way to a comic con, but others might not. Even if this universe didn’t entirely feel like it was his own, he didn’t want to run the risk of unraveling his identity long before he was ready for it.

"Yeah, no mask," Peter agreed, making a face at the flip-flopping of his stomach as he shifted in a way that had the world spinning. He waited until it righted itself and sat up straighter, itching to get away from the commotion of the street. His senses were giving him warning signals from every direction, dialed up too high. He needed somewhere quiet, and Strange was right, it couldn’t be at his aunt’s with how battered he looked, but -

"Mr. Stark? He’s okay?" That made him stand up, even if he had to reach out to the nearby side of the building to steady himself. Tony. He was the last thing Peter thought he was ever going to see, and the sight had been a devastating one. He’d never wanted to upset Tony in that way, ever. But he had. And if he was really here, then maybe everything wasn’t as awful as it seemed.

"Okay. Oh man. I think…" Peter blew out a long breath. His legs were shaky but they held him up well enough. "I think I’m good to go."

The cape fluttered out and gave Peter a consoling pat on the shoulder. It seemed the cape was also concerned with hiding its young ally from view when it flared up to shield Peter's face from view.

Meanwhile, Strange was oblivious to his entirely too loyal outerwear. His back turned to Peter as he used his sling ring to open a portal. As it flared into existence, several pedestrians skittering back in shock and kept a wide berth as they stared in disbelief. Some started reaching for their phones to begin filming, but with the wave of his other hand out toward them, every phone went blank and restarted.

The inside of an executive office came into view, the open door of which revealed a well-lit lab beyond. Several holographic designs hovered in midair, and the smell of coffee and burning wafted through the air.

Although there wasn't any clear frame of reference for either the coffee or the burning, there was a loud fizzling noise and a familiar voice saying, "Yeowch! Ok? I'm ok! Let's pretend that didn't happen."

"Go on through, Peter," Stephen said, more worried about keeping the kid off the radar than he was about himself.

Peter wasn’t sure where to look with the cape - it didn’t have eyes that he could see, but he hoped it noticed his grateful nod nonetheless. He’d have to ask Strange how that worked - if they saw each other after this, that was. Peter got the sense that the man liked to keep his distance from unnecessary chatter, but hey, after having followed the wizard into space and helping to save him from the alien Tony had fittingly dubbed Squidward, Peter figured he’d earned the right for a few questions.

Not yet, though. For once, he was too focused on staying upright to follow through with his curiosity. As the portal ripped through the air, Peter let go of the building he was bracing himself against, looking into the circular gap and seeing something safe and familiar. He’d been taken through Tony’s labs a few times before in the life he’d left behind, and nothing about it seemed hugely changed here. Much as he half-expected all of this to devolve into a nightmare again, this universe seemed enough like his own that he was cautiously beginning to trust it.

"Thank you. Seriously," he told the doctor, meaning it. He looked to the sentient piece of fabric at his back after, giving it a small wave. That curiosity pulled at him again, and this time he couldn’t help the words from spilling out. "Is that like - is it part of you? Like an extension of you? Or is it - cause that’s…" He trailed off, shaking his head sheepishly. Even Peter was too exhausted to let himself rattle on further. "You know what, never-mind. Maybe you can answer all that next time."

Peter pushed one unsteady foot after the other before the crowd around them could linger, stepping on through the crackling portal. It was quieter where he ended up compared to the clamor of the city street, and he took one look back at where he’d come from before scoping out his present surroundings. He couldn’t see Tony but he’d heard him, and hesitantly, he wandered into the lab.

"Mr. Stark?" As put together as he tried to sound, his voice still wavered and cracked a little. Strange may have given him the gist of things, but all of it was hard to take in when in his timeline, he’d just died - or something close to it. He couldn’t stop thinking of the way it had felt. "Mr. Stark? Sorry, um, I think I’m trailing some space dirt on your floor?"

Or he hoped that was just dirt and not dust. He couldn’t tell between all the grime on his suit.

"It's its own thing," Dr. Strange replied and entered the portal behind Peter. As it closed, everyone's phones promptly blipped back into compliance too little too late to film anything. There was a faint 'aww' that could be heard as Stephen watched long enough to make sure that Peter did have his legs under him. Since he was Stark's ward - or whatever - he knew that the teen was in a safe place, and so he opened another portal to the Sanctum to head home.

Tony was in the midst of fine-tuning some settings on his suit. The nanotech armor spread down over one arm, and there was a set of smoldering targets about twenty feet away. He was just about to fire when he heard Parker's questioning voice. The same voice that he woke up hearing, like the kid that never should have been there at all turned to dust.

His fault. It was all just fault upon fault upon fault...

There was something vague that barely registered about space dirt. Tony considered that his brain was firing off on some extra guilt cylinders today.

"Ok, nope, I got stuff to do. No time to lose my shit now," he muttered while blinking away the sting in his eyes. He started to turn around and jerked back half a step, looking like he'd seen a ghost. He knew Peter was in that world, but that he was back to being oblivious about this being an alternate universe. A fact he was willing to let stand since it might keep this universe's blissfully unaware Peter out of trouble. That's why Happy was deflecting any and all questions with: 'Mr. Stark is overseas.' Or insert one of 1001 other token excuses. As he told Happy, 'Just wing it.'

That means there was definitely some mention of space dirt. Tony's head tipped down so he could look at the rusty orange footprints trailing out of his office and fading into his lab.

"Ok. Not losing my shit. No, wait! Zip it a mo. You know everything's borked out, right? You're here, all in one piece and...you didn't like undust all of a sudden or anything, did you? Because...first off, disconcerting much? I vote yes. Second, I'm....you're....you know what? No. Unzip. It's ok."

When all else failed, he blurted out the same phrase he kept telling himself. In this case, it was, as much as it was when Pepper came back.

"It's ok. You're ok," he was saying while walking forward to bridge any gap left between them. It was a well-known fact that Tony Stark was not a touchy-go-feely person. He shunned a fair amount of common physical contact, and he didn't give hugs unless the first name was Pepper and the last name was (so far) Potts.

He practically collided into Peter, and his arms went around a grimy teenager. Once that was accomplished, he didn't let go.

Once Peter caught sight of Tony, he paused, half-expecting the nightmare to kick back up now that he was here. In the comics he’d read and the movies he’d watched, alternate dimensions usually meant that something was awry or horribly wrong from the norm. Having come from a universe where the worst had just unfolded before his eyes, Peter wasn’t willing to count anything out of the realm of possibility.

But Tony didn’t vanish into a cloud of dust, and he didn’t shape-shift into the kind of terrifying alien that Peter knew were out there. Instead he looked a little sad and a little tired, and Peter definitely didn’t think he’d been expecting him. Not like there was really any anticipating an inter-dimensional interruption newly arrived from what had undeniably been the apocalypse.

"H-hi?" Peter managed to get out, offering a weak wave. From the look on Tony’s face and the one he imagined must be on his own, Peter was gathering that they were both ghosts to each other. It was all too easy to listen to that request to zip it, because the lump in his throat was closing around anything else he might have thought to say.

He was trying really, really hard to hold it together, to seem like he could handle all of this without breaking down because he didn’t think it would be very Avenger-like if he did, but he was a kid. He was a kid who’d just died on a faraway planet believing that he’d never see anything or anyone he ever loved again - and here was Tony telling him that it was all okay.

"Dr. Strange found me? He explained it all, but it still doesn’t - I don’t get how I was there but now I’m here. He kinda made it sound like we can't go back, but - my aunt's back there. Where Thanos is. She's still there and if I don't come back she'll freak out and - I can't do that to her, Mr. Stark, I-"

He was rambling nervously, and thankfully those words were cut off by a hug so solid it half-convinced him he really was alive. Peter's vision grew blurry as he gripped right back like Mr. Stark was a lifeline, and his eyes burned. You’re ok. That assurance took him back to the few harrowing moments before the end, when Tony had told him as much even while bits and pieces of him had been flaking away to nothingness. Those seconds had been like sand falling through his fingers, full of numb regret for everything he didn’t have the time to say.

"I’m sorry." It came out muffled against Tony’s shoulder, his voice thick with the messy tears he was now shedding. It had been a survival instinct to push aside his panic around Strange while so many bystanders had been milling about, but alone here with Tony, Tony who he never thought he would see again - the unraveling came quick. "I'm sorry."

For staying on that spaceship, for not getting that gauntlet off before Quill had snapped, for dying, for being upset now: there was a whole list of things Peter couldn't help apologizing for.

Tony wasn't just hugging Peter anymore. He was holding him tight, a little too tightly, but one hand went up to rest against the back of Peter's head. He began petting at the unruly mussed up hair that still had the grit from the battle of Titan in it. Tony felt it against his fingertips. All his brain could wrangle into a perpetual anxiety loop was the memory of the dust that was once Peter Parker was all over his hands, and that they lost. They lost. And there wasn't anything they could do about it. It was over. Strange knew something but didn't say what.

So they lost. And here, they won. But for how long?

"You're ok," he said once again, a mantra for both himself and Peter, and he let out a clipped but nervous sounding laugh at the realization and that Peter was sorry. Oh no, Tony knew that he was the sorry one. He should have protected him. He should have protected everyone. He kept trying to do that by himself in a mad scramble, and no matter how hard he tried, it always went wrong. Horribly wrong.

It was a long moment before he could find his voice again, blinking back tears in his own eyes.

"Whoa. You don't need to say sorry." He lightly patted a hand on Peter's back. "You're here and you're safe. I won't let that happen to you again. Let's get you sat down and figure this out. Attack plan. That's what we'll do. Plan our attack. Because your attractive aunt is here, and as far as she knows? You popped out to go to the library and will be home for dinner."

Peter squeezed his eyes shut as the tears threatened again, his hold tightening at Tony’s shoulder. You’re ok, Tony promised yet again, and as the seconds wore on without Thanos tearing the universe to shreds, Peter was starting to believe it was true - at least in this world. He trusted Tony with a lot of things, and his life was one of them.

"I kinda do need to say it," Peter said sheepishly about his apology a few moments later. He wiped his cheeks with the heel of his palm and drew in a long breath to steady himself. "I mean, I’m getting space dirt all over your shirt."

Because they were actually hugging, a reality which only highlighted the fact that they were in some serious shit. Mr. Stark was never one to be physically touchy - that was just him - but Peter had always known that he’d cared on varying levels. He just didn’t know how much until he’d been seconds away from dying.

"You’re all right too? That was all just - I mean, he threw a moon at you. A moon." And Peter feared Thanos had done far worse when he’d been swinging around trying to catch most of their companions from falling. At least Tony looked to be in one piece now, and Peter’s attention snagged on the mention of his aunt. She was here, and he could go to her, but he wasn’t sure he trusted himself yet to look her in the eye and not spill everything that had happened. He had to keep her in the dark about this one. Much as he hated keeping secrets, he wanted so badly to protect May from any kind of pain.

"Can you tell me everything? Like really everything? Like no holding anything back? Cause all of this is hurting my brain and Dr. Strange made this whole Star Trek analogy which sort of made sense but I’m not as cool as Spock, so I just - I need it all laid out." If he couldn’t go back to his own world to save his aunt and his friends from whatever Thanos planned next, he wanted to know why. Even if he guessed it would haunt his sleep for nights and nights to come.

"And sitting down would be awesome. Really, really awesome," Peter added, realizing he was gripping at Tony’s sleeves to help hold his shaking legs up. After the day he’d had, a chair or a couch or any solid surface under him would feel like luxury.

"I can take a hit from a moon and don't worry about the shirt. I'll get some samples off it later. Just...yeah, we're sitting you down now."

Tony he guided Peter back into the office and onto a luxury couch. A couch that Tony spent a few months on when Pepper was wiped out of existence too. Now she was back and that Peter returned, and he should feel elated and at ease. But all he felt was an overwhelming urge to build a better barrier to put around them to, keep them safe. He had many, many sleepless nights, full of memories and thoughts that hit him like a sledgehammer coming out of nowhere. Where he stared at the ceiling, thinking of contingency plans and 'what if's that never seemed to have an end to them.

One contingency plan occured to him, as he blurted out, "Don't hurk on the couch. Use the waste basket."

While he was among the living, no one was ever going to be safe from random thoughts flying out of Tony Stark's mouth. The harried engineer pressed the palm of one hand to his forehead and looked like he was thinking at Mach 10 about how to explain it all and what to do next. Plans were good. Take it step by step.

"All right, before I launch into the whole Multiverse theory? Your super attractive aunt." Always a good launching point. "You're gonna need a few days to let the dust settl--nope? Noping at that. Bad metaphor. We can't have you go blurting everything out to her. You're edgy, blurting will happen. So, internship. I'll send Happy over to let her know. Take her some flowers and actual bread, baked by people who know how to bake. Tell her you'll call or email in a couple days. We're sciencing a suit thing, so you need to be here. Maybe he can suck down some tea and have a carb overload with her. That works. I like this. You on board, kid? Yeah. This is good."

Sensitivity Training would have been a great thing for Tony, but no. He kept nodding off or doodling new designs. Finally, the very last time he was told to attend, he flashed a peace sign as he waltzed toward the exit. Never looked back. That was twelve years ago.

Currently, he was a little more hyper-focused. As apparent when he sat behind his desk and started typing while talking.

"You can stay in the guest room at the Penthouse for a couple days. I'll let Pep know. We'll get one of the apartments set up at thirty Warren. As for that whole wonky universe stuff, we'll map it out. Everything's easier with a holographic doodle and...stuff. We're doing stuff. We're good. We got stuff."

Tapping away on the keys lit up over the surface of his desk, Tony was in full unfiltered fix it mode. Interrupt at your own risk.