Spiderman Oneshots

Oh, snap (1)

"Cindy?" Mr Harrington asked.

"Here, sir."

"Abe?"

"Present."

"Peter?"

Silence.

"Peter?! Oh, not again. Ned, do you know where he went?"

"No, sir."

"Did anyone see where Peter went? Anyone? Oh lord, please don't let me lose another one!"

"Sir, what do we do about the alien ship?" Someone asked nervously.

"Nothing we can do," Mr Harrington said matter of factly as the giant black donut began to rise back into the sky. "It's leaving now anyway. But where has Peter gone? We're on a bus, there's nowhere to go!"

Ned gazed out of the window at the spaceship, and crossed his fingers that his best friend wasn't on it.

~

The trip was interesting enough, but nobody could focus on work when videos of the fight that had just occurred were going viral all over the internet. Ned watched one on his phone as he pretended to read an exhibit, and winced as he saw the red blob clinging to the side of the ascending ship. Apparently Iron Man had gone up too.

Ned prayed he'd see his friend again.

~

They went back home, Mr Harrington still making frantic phone calls to try and locate his missing student, but in vain. They went home, and the next day they went back into school. Still no word from the missing student, or any sign of Iron Man's return. To take the student's minds off it, as it was obvious nobody was going to concentrate in class, the school hosted a football competition, complete with brass band.

Before the game could even start, a mad titan snapped his fingers and half of all life in the universe was wiped from existence.

In the chaotic and miserable five years that followed, Peter's mysterious absence in the days before the event that was come to be known as the Snap, was completely forgotten.

~

However, five years after their disappearance, everybody who'd been gone was Snapped back into existence, exactly as they had left it. For those who returned, the absence of their classmate was fresh in their minds, and those who had stayed were quickly reminded of it when he still didn't show up for the mandatory reorientation classes in the days after the return. Mr Harrington, who had thought he'd gotten away with the whole ordeal, began to despair for his career.

There were some conspiracies that Peter had never been Snapped, and had been living his life in exile in Peru all these years. Ned's worried theory was a lot darker - they'd still heard nothing concerning the Avengers other than that only Iron Man had returned from space during the five-year interlude - but Spider-Man had not been seen again. Ned had no idea whether his friend was even still alive, or stranded in the depths of space somewhere, dying.

~

One week and three days later, Peter showed up in the school corridor with red eyes and Ned practically squeezed the life out of his best friend. Nobody said it to his face, but the whole school was whispering about where he'd been all this time. Several teachers pulled him aside to ask if he was okay, and he just nodded and smiled weakly and moved on.

A large hotel on the edge of the city had offered to temporarily house those displaced by the blip. Ned's dad hadn't been snapped, so he could still live in his old house, but an elderly couple had moved into Peter's apartment during his absence, so like many others in a similar situation, he and May were living in the hotel.