Saving Grace

Seventy Seven

Peter manages to get down, carefully picking his way to the semi-stable surface of Titan, carrying Mantis and Drax with him. They were conscious now and arguing about something Peter doesn't have the energy to understand, though their bickering provides him with their names.

He lets Drax and Mantis go, then runs to Mr. Stark, helping him up. The other guy — Quill, Peter remembers — and Mantis lean on each other, though the cyborg and Drax walk on their own. Strange is still sitting to the side.

Then, there's a sound, like a small thunderclap. Mantis looks worried. "Something's happening."

Without any other warning, she begins to turn to dust, gradually, yet too quickly to do anything about it. The ashes left of her drift away like a whisper, like they have somewhere to be but there's no rush to get there. Drax looks at Quill, who only looks scared and panicked. Peter turns to Mr. Stark, searching for answers, and he looks just the same way. He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't know what to do.

Drax begins to turn to dust too. "Quill?" he says, before he fades completely, following Mantis.

Quill breathes heavily as he starts to do the same. Tony runs up to him. "Steady, Quill."

"Aw, man," he groans, and then there's nothing left of him to be steady — to be at all.

Then, Strange, as if he knows it's his turn, says, "Tony... there was no other way." In another moment, he's gone too.

And that's when Peter feels it — the fear and the panic and the pain. Like there's a fire within him, and his whole body screams. He feels weak. Terrified. Small.

"Mr. Stark?" he says, trying to breathe, causing Tony to turn, panic rising in own his chest. Peter stumbles. "I don't feel so good..."

"You're alright," Tony says, looking in Peter's panicked face, saying it to reassure him and himself. He has to be alright. He has to be.

He staggers towards Tony, looking at his hands. "I don't know what's- I don't know what's happening. I don't-"

He falls forward, and Tony catches him, holding him up, holding him close. He has to be alright.

Scared, panicked, sounding like a terrified child, holding onto Tony like one — because that's exactly what he is — he pleads, "I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go, Mr. Stark, please." He hangs off Tony, and Tony can't hold him up, even if it feels like he's getting lighter with each passing second. "Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go." They fall to the ground, Peter on his back, Tony leaning over him. He's crying. He looks at Tony, knows there's nothing his mentor, his father-figure, can do to save him, and the panic fades, the worry coming in, but not entirely for himself. "I'm sorry," he breathes. "And tell her I'm sorry, too, Mr. Stark. I'm so sorry..."

Tony fights back his tears, not wanting Peter to see him cry, to make him feel more guilty or scared. "I will..." he says.

Peter looks up, past him, and then crumbles, turning to dust, slipping through Tony's fingers, blown away by the unfelt wind. Tony falls forward, his hand passing through the space where Peter was. He looks at it, sees the dust on it, and he waits.

He sits up, and he waits.

He waits to go too. He waits to fade away, to drift off into space or just the atmosphere of this awful planet. He waits to die here, so, so far away from home, from his family.

But he never does.

The cyborg, standing behind him, softly says, "He did it."

Tony shakes his head, wishing it weren't true, wishing he could go back, change it, fix it.

Half the universe is dead.

And what about the Avengers? Rhodey? Happy? Pepper? What about Grace?

His flesh and blood, his daughter, his little girl, his crying, suffering, heart-broken little girl, his seventeen year old little girl with a whole life ahead of her, a whole life she was supposed to spend with Peter and him and her mother and her family and Harley, who loves chocolate chip pancakes and reading and art and arguing with him about almost everything that matters, who's supposed to be a bridesmaid at his wedding partly because Pepper joked that she was too old to be a flower girl but it's mainly because Grace is the most important girl — the most important person — in either of their lives, and what will he do if they're gone? What will he have?

Nothing.

The cyborg sits down next to him. "Are...?" she starts. "Are you... okay?"

He looks at her with haunted eyes. "I need to get home."