Endgame 2.0 (A Peter Parker and Avengers fanfiction)

Chapter 4

This should be very obvious but I realized I haven't actually written this yet before, but all characters and such belong to Marvel and I do not in any way own them. In this one specific chapter, I've taken aspects from Infinity War (I didn't take the whole script, just a few of the actions and a couple of lines) and made them into a parody of sorts (it's not really a parody per se- it's not sardonic but it is an imitation so...) where I make it from Peter's POV and tie in parts of my story from it. Other parts of my plot will be references to Endgame and stuff, but only minor, so most of the plot is my own. Everything else is owned by Marvel, though.

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The holographic screen shimmered, pulling up an image of what seemed to be the inside of a school bus, and Tony had his heart in his throat, not knowing what they'd see, but knowing it'd be... far from ideal.

He instinctively looked around at the Avengers before starting it. They may have had a fallout, but at least they hadn't actually engaged in a physical fight before the kid interrupted them. Tony wondered what would've happened if he didn't, and scribbled a mental note in his mind to check with Peter's AI and watch any available footage on that. 

Tony's eyes swept around the room, taking inventory of everyone's faces and cataloging their disturbed, worried, unsure faces in the back of his mind. On one hand, they knew exactly what they'd see, thanks to Peter's explanation, but on the other, it left a lot up to the imagination. Thanos, as Peter had called him, was a big purple alien? How was he supposed to imagine that? How tall? What were his features? When asked, Peter had flashed a small smile and let out a cracked laugh, shaking his head. He'd looked a bit lost in his memories for a moment, eyes glazing over, and then he'd said simply: He's got a nutsack for a chin. Steve had choked, and Tony and Clint had given small, identical barks of laughter at the unique choice of words. Peter had spared Steve a glance, the edges of his mouth quirking upwards, and had said that they could think of it as a panini chin instead if that made them feel better. Tony had grinned, almost forgetting that they were talking about the guy who'd wiped out half the universe, until Peter's eyes had dimmed, face taking on that sad expression again, and the weight of it all had hit him like a ton of cement.

Speaking of the kid... Tony's eyes snagged on his pale, terrified face, and he found he couldn't look away. This was Peter, the kid who he'd met but a week ago and had essentially kidnapped him and dragged him to Germany to fight Cap. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid, though if you made a list of his life's choices and the level of idiocy of each one, this wouldn't even make the top 25. Maybe the top 50.

Regardless, this was Spider-Man, the 14-year-old (well, this version of him was 16, but details) who'd sat on the edge of his creaky bed in his small-ass apartment, schooling Tony Stark on responsibility. Not that it was difficult to inform Tony about responsibility, no, because he generally didn't pay much attention to that sort of thing- to a degree, mind you, he still had to be responsible for some things. No, the difficult part was to get him to listen.

'When you can do the things I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.'

He'd been knocked speechless because of those words. Of course, after a second where it'd felt like all the air had been sucked out of his chest and he was completely vulnerable because of a 14-year-old kid, his mask was back up and he was snarking at the kid to move his leg because that's just what he does. 

But he hadn't been able to sleep that night.

He'd wandered down to the lab and had found himself just thinking. He couldn't tell whether the kid was exactly like him, or completely and utterly different, and that terrified him. He'd never been unable to get a read on anyone like he was unable to get a read on that kid, except for maybe Natasha. But it was different for her- everyone knew she hid things. Peter had everything laid out in the open in that raw, vulnerable moment and Tony had seen himself. He'd seen a boy who'd lost far, far too much, who took what he had and made the best out of it. That much, Tony knew, knew because it was essentially looking at a younger version of himself. But where Tony had filled in the open wounds left in his heart with booze and sex, Peter filled in with responsibility and endless love. Where Tony had covered up, blocked himself off from the outside, protecting himself from being hit because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get back up, Peter had opened himself up once again, not afraid of being hit because he knew he'd get back up. And he was better because of it, Tony could see.