Spiderman Oneshots

Ghost Peter (1)

"I don't feel so good Mr Stark," Peter gasped. His body ached, the pain building. He looked down at his hands, and saw them blurring at the fingertips, crumbling into dust. No.

"You're alright," Tony said, wide-eyed. Peter could barely feel the man's hands on him through the mounting agony. His enhanced senses screamed.

He could feel himself being pulled apart. He could feel himself being pulled away from this world.

But he was being pulled in two different directions.
One way, he could see his friends and fellow fighters, huddled in an expanse of peaceful ocean.

When Peter looked the other way, he began to panic, gripping his mentor tighter. "I don't want to go." Because on the other side, he saw his family, smiling sadly at him, the cold darkness reaching closer to embrace him as the pain slowly devoured him, too much for any human to bear. He reached for the yellow light of the other world, suddenly so much more welcoming. "Please."

A shuddering breath brought Peter's attention back to the world he was in, to the body being slowly torn apart despite its best efforts to heal itself. It was hard to think through the pain, the agony, the terror. Who was that man holding him?

"I don't want to go," he recognised that man. Knew his name. What was it? "Mr Stark!" He felt the worlds tugging him in different directions, tearing his soul in two even as his mortal body finally gave up. He saw the pain on the man's face, a mere shadow of the pain he felt, but still pain. On Tony's face. "I'm sorry, Tony." The worlds pulled harder. He needed to choose. "I'm sorry."

He became ash, and dust, and shadows. He reached for the yellow world, the one full of warmth and people, but the pain had pushed it too far away. He grasped at nothing as the dark realm sucked him closer. If he'd had eyes, he would have sobbed. The yellow world vanished.

Peter Parker died.

He needed to go now. It was too late to choose. He turned towards his family, sparing a single glance over his shoulder at the world he was leaving behind. At the man still clutching at his ashes.

Peter stayed watching for a second too long. The dark world faded.

Peter was stranded.

For the first year, he drifted. He didn't know his own name, he had no body. He sometimes missed hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks. All he knew was the man, who seemed to tug him along in his wake like a balloon in a storm. He was intrigued by the man, so boisterous, so full of life.

Eventually, he remembered what it was like to have a body. He formed his own, of a silvery substance that only he could see. Maybe he just imagined it, but it was better than nothing. And still that man, at the centre of his world, often with a woman whose name tickled at his memory, and now a baby, whose cries echoed through the abyss and reached him as watery screams.

The third year, he began to remember things. Nothing important, no names, just bits and pieces. Nothing stayed for long. The man - he had known him. Once, when he had been alive.

He'd been alive once.

The fourth year, he began to notice others like him. Shadows of people, drifting behind the living as if caught on a phantom wind. He didn't acknowledge them, and they ignored him too. He wasn't even sure that they could see him.

In the fifth year, he managed to gain some control of himself. He could move away from the man. Explore his house. Follow his daughter to nursery. School. He'd been to school once.
One day he dredged up the energy to follow an invisible force that tugged on him. He went to a house, like the one the man owned but smaller, where an old couple lived and the memories were stronger. Nearby he found a school, with children that he might have once known. He was too tired to remember.

When he awoke, he was back by the man's side as he did washing up. He looked so tired, so weary... He reached for a plate, not knowing why. Every other time he'd tried, his hand had gone right through everything. But this time, he made contact. He was so surprised that he jerked back. The plate shattered on the floor.
The man swore and bent down to clean it.

Not long after, he stood by the man again as he argued with another. This time, some of the words filtered through.

"Help us....quantum realm...... time....."

The man shook his head. The other's eyes turned dark and his voice became louder, punching through the veil that separated him from the world.

"...not fair! You get to keep your wife, your child. Others don't. What makes you entitled to deny them your help when you can at least try to make things right? Everybody else lost someone that day. What did you lose? You didn't have to watch as your friends turned to dust in front of you. You didn't have to hold anyone as they died in your arms. It's the least you can do."

The man's eyes were fixed downwards. He wasn't sure what he needed the man to say, just that he needed him to say it.

A long moment passed, and the man stayed silent. The other huffed and stalked away. The man went back inside, eyes still fixed on the floor.

He had the feeling that if he tried to touch anything now, his hand would pass right through it again like he wasn't even there.

His grasp of time had tightened, but sometimes it still slipped away from him. The next thing he knew, he was stood beside the man as he held his hand in a pile of others, all of them wearing white suits and all with faces he couldn't quite remember. Then the faces were covered and the people were gone. The man was gone. So was he.