WHO: Summer Roberts and Peter Parker WHAT: Talking (INFINITY WAR SPOILERS) WHEN: Recently WHERE: In the park WARNINGS: Infinity War Spoilers, Talk of Death STATUS: Closed/Started in Gdocs, continuing in comments
Peter still wasn’t over the stuff he’d faced when he’d gone home. In fact, he was pretty sure he was never going to go over it. It wasn’t just another bad guy, or him screwing up and having to be saved by Tony Stark. Those things had happened before and he’d gotten through them.
No. This was the end of the world. The death of half of the people in the whole universe, and himself. They’d lost. All of them. The Avengers had lost. The good guys had been defeated, and in Peter’s worldview, that just wasn’t supposed to happen.
And on top of all of that, he’d died. And he was only sixteen years old. He wasn’t ready to die yet. Not even close.
He’d tried to forget about it all, but it hadn’t done a lot of good. He felt sick. He couldn’t sleep. He’d almost completely lost his appetite. He wasn’t the kid he’d been before he’d gone home because he’d gone through something so terrible that you couldn’t be who you were when you came out the other side. You just couldn’t.
Finally, he’d given Summer a call and asked her to meet him at the park. He got there first, and when she arrived, he was sitting on a picnic table, hugging his legs. He didn’t look like any type of superhero...he looked very much like the scared, traumatized kid that he was.
Looking up, he gave her a bit of a weak smile when he saw her - it was all that he could muster.
“Hey. Thanks for coming.”
***
Ever since he'd returned, Summer tried to spend as much time with Peter as she could. Within reason, of course. She knew her dads noticed her interest in him. She now sort of knew what Molly had gone through. Was still going through?
So far, nothing serious was going on. Summer wasn't quite sure what their relationship was. They'd gone to prom and hung out a lot, but there wasn't a label yet for what they were. Right now, he was just a friend that she liked a lot. She also didn't want to think about what it meant if he were to suddenly be sent home again.
When she found him in the park, huddled like he was, she knew it meant not thinking about it was going to be out of the question. He really did look scared and lost.
"Hey, no problem," she said gently, taking a seat beside him. "I'm here now."
He wasn't alone, at least not in proximity. With his thoughts? Well, if he was, she hoped he knew he could talk to her about whatever was bothering him.
***
Peter didn’t want to dwell on it. But it haunted his dreams and consumed him. He was sixteen years old and had so many things left that he still wanted to do. He just couldn’t die yet. And not just him, but half of everybody.
He tried to imagine Queens without half of the people he knew and loved and almost barfed. What had happened back home was worse than a war. Worse than a global cataclysm. It was just about the worst thing that could possibly ever happen ever.
He looked over at her and forced a little smile. It wasn’t entirely insincere.
“Are your dads doing okay?”
***
Summer returned the smile, hoping hers was warm and friendly. She figured his smile was forced, but she appreciated that it didn’t seem fully insincere, that he was actually happy to see her.
“They’re okay,” she said simply. It was the truth right now. It’s what she knew based on what they’d said to her. She knew they were glad to be back.
“I know bad things went down,” she added. That was also based on knowing Peter had gone through something, too. She had wondered if it was all related somehow. “But they aren’t really talking about it.”
At least not so much with her. She hoped they at least opened up to their significant others.
***
“I wasn’t with either of them,” he said simply. “But I can tell you everything that happened on Titan.” At least after he’d gotten there. “If you want.”
He wasn’t going to pressure her if she didn’t want to know what happened. But if she did, he’d tell her what little he knew. There were so many different parts of it that he wondered if anyone knew everything.
***
"It's not about what I want," Summer said gently, even surprising herself a little.
If she'd been back home, she probably would have been itching to here about it as if it were gossip. She knew better now. This wasn't gossip. This was Peter's life and it was personal for him. It wasn't some news to spread throughout the school.
"I'm here to listen if you want to talk about it," she added sincerely. "Or I'm here to hang out and keep you company or provide silly distractions. Whatever you want."
She truly meant it. She would let him decide.
***
It was strange to realize, but Peter found that he kind of actually did want to talk about it. Maybe it would make things hurt less to actually get it out.
“There was a spaceship. It came to New York to try to get the Time Stone, which Strange had. There was fighting and stuff and we ended up on the ship which was heading towards a Titan. Me, Strange and Tony Stark.”
Getting to Titan hadn’t been nearly as upsetting as what had happened when they’d arrived there and he kind of stopped, finding it very difficult to go on from there.