Chapter Text
Snap.
Peter Parker felt it. He knew something was wrong, even before the people around him started disappearing into clouds of dust, blown away one after the other so quickly his head would’ve been spinning- that is, if he weren’t focused on the dull tingling of his Spidey Sense in the back of his skull or the aching vibrations starting at his fingertips.
He closed his eyes briefly, feeling his body start to disassemble on a molecular level- a sentence that would’ve been cool to a science nerd like him... were he not one of the active test subjects - super-healing included and all. Every atom in his body split, agonizingly slowly yet all too quickly for his last moments on... well, not on Earth. Flakes of his very being dissipated into the wind of the cruel planet he had started to call his own personal hell.
As others vanished in the breeze, he started to stumble towards the one person he knew he could count on. Turning his head, he caught a mouthful of dust to the face, and he sputtered unpleasantly, stomach twisting violently at the thought that that clump of dust very well could’ve been one of the people he was standing with only moments before. Momentarily blinded, he blinked harshly against the grit in his eyes, staggering towards the direction he’d last seen his mentor.
“Mr. Stark?” he voiced unsurely.
Please don’t be gone. Please don’t be gone. I don’t want to go alone.
When he opened his eyes again, the dust blocking his vision seemed to be gone, but he could only see a blurry outline of his mentor.
His eyes, just like the rest of his body, were starting to fade.
“Hey. You’re okay.” Mr. Stark said, catching Peter as he fell forward- he didn’t know whether it was because he was too weak to stand or because he had no feet or legs anymore, and he was frankly too scared to ask.
At the man’s statement, Peter would’ve laughed if he could’ve. No, I’m not. his mind supplied. As it was, the teen was too weak to do that, his mind screaming with pain as his enhanced senses registered more and more of his body ripping itself apart.
“I don’t- I don’t wanna go. Mr. Stark- I don’t wanna go.”
Did he?
Pain was the only thing he could register anymore, all logical thoughts of trying to stay alive banished. He just wanted the pain to stop.
He just wanted it all to stop.
He barely noticed his voice fade out, or the two of them crashing to the ground, Tony’s arm cradling his head- like it’d do much good in protecting him.
He couldn’t feel the rest of his body.
Peter’s eyes rolled around, locking onto Tony’s, and he could see with a clarity the inevitable mirrored back at him in his mentor’s dull eyes, dismal with pain.
He was dying. They both knew it.
Tony’s hands twitched, aching to fix it, to piece him back together. Because he was a mechanic. He fixed things. But he was helpless here.
Peter? He just wanted the pain to stop.
So he stopped fighting.
He briefly registered clumps of dust being flung into the wind nearby, realizing that the dust was actually parts of his body but blocking that out in favor of locking eyes with Tony.
As he finally let himself go, he whispered his last words, the ones he wished could ease the pain in his mentor’s eyes but knew they wouldn't. Though his dusting had already seemed to stretch over an agonizingly long period of time, he wished he could’ve said so much more.
I'm sorry.
And then his body disintegrated into the wind and his words followed, chasing after his remains and echoing mournfully around the dusty red planet.
I'm sorry.
Tony sat up, rocking back and forth with his hands coated in dust and dirt and blood, and a single tear rolled down his cheek.
Because the kid had died, and it was on him.