Without You - Chapter Three
Ch 1 Ch 2
The link to AO3
Tw: Major character death, grieving, IW and Endgame
I hope you enjoy!
~~
When the team got back from their assigned times they noticed someone was missing- Natasha. “Where’s Nat?” Tony looked worried when he asked Clint, to whom Clint just fell into a ball on the platform sobbing. “We lost her..” he managed to spill out, “She just.. I was going to be the one to jump, but she would not let me.. S-she sacrificed herself for this stupid stone.” He got up and threw the soul stone at Tony, “I hope you’re happy now! You get your boyfriend back but I lose my best friend.”
“Clint, come on!” As he is walking away, he looks up and sees a woman, wearing a long dark cloak covering her face, “Woah! Where the hell did you come from?!” He turns back around to look at his friends who started running towards the mysterious figure ready to fight. She raised her hand and pulled up her hood enough to expose her face and everyone stopped in their tracks and just stared. Somehow.. It was Natasha.
‘How can she be alive? I saw her fall! I saw her die.’ Clint thought as he reached out his hand to touch her face to see if she was real and that he wasn’t dreaming, “I’m real Clint.. I’m alive. Well sort of..”
“How is this possible?” Stark asked clearly dumbfounded, he had always theorised about resurrection since Peter’s passing but never had solved it.
“But I saw you! You died!” Clint tried so hard to fight the tears but one escaped.
“A reaper saved me, she gave me a second chance, I got back to earth.. to 2014, the tech was already ruined and didn’t work so I had no way to get back to 2023. What I had to do was keep my footprints minimal and not interfere with anything.” Natasha said.
“Wait, why did you say “sort of”?” Carol asked.
“Because I’m not really alive.. I had to pay my dept to balance the universe, both for not staying dead on Vormir and for being resurrected, and that was to either go back to being dead or become something else.” She said as she removed her hood entirely to reveal long black hair and two very big black wings.
“The price was becoming the horseman, Death.” The wings got back to where they came from, just disappearing into her body.
Right after the team talked with Natasha she said she had to go, that her being there already compromised it all, so she spread her wings and took off flying.
~~
After a couple of minutes of carefully putting the assembled stones in the gauntlet it was finally ready. There were a lot of people saying that they should do it but eventually Bruce did it, bringing everyone back.
Clint was the first one to get a confirmation that they succeeded, Tony saw Clint and tried to call Peter on their shared linked comms and after a couple seconds that felt like a million years. “Peter? Peter, honey?!” He prayed at this point to god even though he didn’t believe in him. But at last he got a response from his fiancé, “Tony? What happened? Where are you?” The worry in his voice was so loud. “I’m here sweetie, I’m here. You’re back and that's what matters.”
A moment later a portal opened and the team from Titan walked through and the first one Tony sees is Peter, his Peter. Both of them started to run towards each other and collapsed into each other's embrace declaring, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. I don’t want to fight you.” Tony said. While Peter said almost the same. Tony took a hold of Peter's face with his hands, cupping his cheeks and looked into his eyes and started kissing the young man. They were in the zone until someone coughed saying “Get a room.”
Peter opened his eyes and looked around and started to blush so he went and hid in the crook of Tony’s neck. “Sorry..” Peter said, “Or wait, no. No, I will not apologise for kissing my fiancé after I have allegedly been dead for a year.” So he went back to kissing Tony.
But they were abruptly interrupted by a huge destruction of the compound, the team was split up and badly hurt. Peter couldn’t see anything and a huge wave of deja vu struck, it was just like that time when the building collapsed on him back when Tomes still operated. He tried to call Tony through their linked comms but there was no connection so his only option was to try to get out by himself, and since that barely did anything he had to call for help.
But the only thing he managed to get out was a measly “help”. He tried all he could to get all the concrete off of him but it didn’t work. His lungs got less and less air and he hoped to god that someone would find him.
~~
Tony woke up with his ears ringing from the bomb - thank god for his nano suit, without it he would be more toast then he already is- and he could bearly breath from his broken ribs but he didn’t care because all he cared for was Peter and he could not see him. He tried to call him but it just disconnected, so he was left with calling on him.
“Peter!!!! Peter, can you hear me?! Is anyone near me?!!” The older man called out in desperation and to his surprise he heard a wheezing sound coming from below him. He tried to lift off the blocks of concrete but he was not strong enough, not even with his suit. “Steve? Steve you there?” He prayed that his comms weren’t destroyed like Peter’s. “Tony. Thank god you’re alive, where are you?” Steve’s voice sounded hoarse, probably from all the dust and debris. “Friday is tracking your comms and will tell you the way to go…” a pause, “I need your help. It’s Peter… I think he’s trapped.” The older man muted his comms so that Steve can’t hear him breaking down.
Cap struggled with it but got it done, “Last one Peter..” The captain said. But when Peter was free of all the concrete there was a bigger problem.. “Peter.. Try not to freak out but..” Steve said warily.
“I have a metal bar through me, don’t I?” Peter’s voice was barely above a whisper. Tony and Cap picked him up as carefully as possible, “Careful.. Careful.. You’re safe.” When they put him on his feet Peter almost fell towards Tony, “Whoa whoa!! I got you.” That’s when he started to cough blood right on Tony, Peter stumbled back a little until he got his balance right, “Hey hey, calm down, what are you doing?!” Peter took a hold of the metal bar and started to pull it out. “No no no! Not a good idea. Pete no.” The man tried to stop the younger man but he just said: “I need to heal.. Can’t heal with this in me.” He gripped it again and pulled it out entirely. It sounded painful and Tony hated it.
“See, it’s starting to heal already. Thank you Steve.. Hey I’m okay. Tony, look at me, I’m okay.” The young man took hold of Tony’s jaw and looked him right in his eyes, “I’m okay” he whispered. To whom the older man nodded.
~~
They started to make their way up to where Thanos was, all the Avengers assembled and the battle began. There was a lot happening and all the Avengers were trying desperately to win, but there had to be a sacrifice. Someone had to make the snap and that person was supposed to be Tony..
“And.. I am.. Iron Man!” Snap! “What?” Tony tried to snap but the stones weren't there, someone had taken them. Tony gasped, “Peter!!”
“I can’t let you die on me just yet, old man!” And with the snap of his fingers it was done, Thanos’ army disappeared and turned to dust and last was The Mad Titan himself, incinerating to dust.
Tony ran towards Peter and held him as he gasped for air, he yelled for people to help him, but then a miracle happend, Peter started to heal. The right side of his body is still visibly damaged, the scars seem like old healed scars at this point and his eye is still affected. So what Tony does is call out for Friday to call Dr. Cho and she did as she was told. Ten minutes later Dr. Cho came in a helicopter and rushed towards Peter and paramedics put him on their board and in under thirty seconds he was on and was soon in the ambulance helicopter with Tony.
~~
Peter woke up in a hospital room for what felt like the day after the snap. He remembers it pretty well, him stopping Tony, the love of his life from snapping his fingers and did it himself and the next thing he remembers from that is Tony holding him in his lap and begging him not to leave him.
To his right he saw Tony sleeping in the chair next to the hospital bed and on his left was Ned and MJ and his aunt May. And when they noticed that he was awake they immediately called the nurses, the nurses came in rushing, to check on him to see if he was okay. After Peter had been given some water he took a hold of Tony’s hand and shook it. “Babe?” He said, “Tony?”
“Huh?” As he was waking up from his deep slumber he looked up to see Peter awake, “You’re awake? Omg! I’ve missed you so much Petey. Don’t you ever do that to me again.” The man rose up and took a hold of the younger man's face and leaned in to kiss his fiancé, “I promise, plus I’m here now and that’s what matters.”
“And you were about to sacrifice yourself so you don’t have that much to say about it. And you would have died while doing it, so I did it so you wouldn’t have to die”
The young man continued the kiss and at this point Ned, MJ and May started to go out the hospital room but didn’t get that far before Peter said that he wanted to say hi to them as well.
~~
It was about six months after the battle, Peter had gone through a couple surgeries to fix his right side, his right arm got replaced with a bionic arm just like Bucky and his body had healed well and he was up on his feet with the help of physiotherapy. Tony has never been happier than he is right now, they have even started to plan their wedding.
