Wow, what is this, a 2 day streak? M u t i n y.

Lol no I'm just procrastinating on studying for the 3 tests I have tomorrow :P

TW: Blood, gore, can't really think of anything else but you get it.

This takes place some ambigious time after Homecoming; the Avengers were pardoned but that's not the main focus of this story. IW and Endgame have not happened yet/ never will happen, whichever you prefer.

~ ~ ~

Crash.

Boom.

cRASH.

Spider-Man's limp body flew through the air, thrown by the force of the explosion. The last thing Peter could feel was his body floating, weightless, before darkness enveloped him completely.

~ ~ ~

7 hours earlier...

Peter groaned as light filtered through his eyelids, flipping onto his side and burying his face in his pillow. He drifted off for a few moments until his alarm came to life, a loud beeping startling him and fueling his body with adrenaline as he leaped out of bed.

As he looked around his surroundings, he groaned and slammed a hand down on the alarm clock, letting out a large yawn.

"Ugh," he muttered, looking wistfully at his bed. But there'd be no point in climbing back in now; Mr. Stark had specifically designed that alarm clock to go off at a frequency that would make Peter wake up immediately. It changed the frequency of the tone slightly every day so that his brain didn't get used to the sound, and ever since Mr. Stark had made it for him he hadn't slept past his wake-up time once. Well, except for the time he accidentally broke the alarm with his super strength while attempting to turn it off half asleep. His new one was made of a mix of Vibranium and Adamantium, courtesy of Princess Shuri and King T'Challa. (Peter still thought it was insane that he got Vibranium for his alarm clock, but Shuri had insisted that it was such a small amount it didn't matter. Still. Insane.)

He trudged over to his dresser, grabbing jeans and yanking them on. He glanced in his mirror for a second, peering closely at a huge bruise spanning the left side of his torso. He poked it tentatively, and then hissed in pain. 

"Wow, thanks a lot, Villain #735 from last night for throwing a steel rod at me. I predicted correctly; it left a bruise." Peter muttered sarcastically, grabbing on his science pun T-Shirt and pulling it on carefully.

He hurried through the rest of his morning routine, stopping in the kitchen to grab a granola bar and an apple. 

"Bye Aunt May!" he called down the hallway, and Aunt May's head poked out of her bedroom, hair tousled and glasses askew. She hurried towards him, giving him a hug and checking that he had breakfast, shoving $5 in his hand for lunch before shoving him gently towards the door.

"Bye Peter, I larb you."

"Larb you too Aunt May!" Peter called over his shoulder, already halfway out the door, voice muffled by a mouthful of apple.

May shook her head, smiling, before turning around to get ready for work.

~ ~ ~

6 hours later...

The kid wasn't even supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in school, learning pointless things and chatting to his friend Ned about whatever Star Wars Lego Set they were drooling over this week.

Yet there he was, in his glorified red and blue onesie, swinging past the Iron Man suit gracefully, much to the chagrin of Tony Stark.

"Kid, aren't you supposed to be in school?!" Tony shouted, shooting repulsor beams at the weird-ass alien experiments that decided to attack New York on this fine Friday afternoon. New Yorkers were scattering, taking a wide berth around the destruction, but none seemed particularly surprised.

"I mean, yeah, but fighting aliens with the Avengers is a much more productive way to spend my Friday afternoon!" Peter shouted, shooting webs at the nearest alien before swinging it around to slam into another one.

"He takes after you, Tones." Rhodey commented through their earpiece.

"After me? Are you kidding? I would much rather be sitting in my lab than fighting aliens right now, Rhodey." Tony retorted.

"Yes, but would you rather be sitting in a classroom with a bunch of irritating teens?" Natasha interjected smoothly.

"Exactly, thank you Ms. Romanoff."

"It's Nat." Natasha said, but all of them knew it was a losing battle; Peter still called all of them Ms. or Mr. 

It was pretty much a war by now.

"Yeah, okay." Peter said distractedly. "Where'd these aliens come from anyways?"

"They're not technically aliens." Bruce said from where he was positioned on the Quin Jet. "They seem to be genetically modified apes."

"Really genetically modified apes." Clint muttered. "They look like a mix between a rabid dog and a serial killer. Mix in some pirahanas in there too and viola."

"Your explanation is blowing my mind." Tony said, deadpan, as he blasted another not-alien.

Oh come on, how many of them are there?

"Tony, I'm picking up a signal coming from the park. It seems that's where all the aliens are coming from. If we can get there and disable the power source, we can hopefully shut 'em all down."

"I thought they weren't aliens." Peter muttered, but Tony barely noticed the sound, too consumed with the familiarity of the whole situation.

"Cap, this isn't another wormhole thing, is it? Because as much as I'd love to make another sacrifice play to shut the aliens down, I think my luck has run out." Tony grunted as he blasted another alien away from him. "I'm too bogged down; someone else needs to go, or come and take my position and I'll go."

He listened over the comms, but no one else responded for a couple of heartbeats.

"I can't." Cap grunted, sounding like the air had just been knocked out of him. "Too many. Anyone else?"

A chorus of 'no's answered him.

"Is this a Hulk situation?" Bruce asked, a bit timidly, over the line. Was it? 

Before any of them could answer, though, another voice crackled over the comm.

"Negative, Dr. Banner, I can go." Peter said.

He was met with protests from every person.

"Kid, come and take my spot, I can go instead." Tony said breathlessly, trying to blow through as many aliens as he could.

"No, you can't, Mr. Stark, I'm closest and I got rid of all the mutant-aliens on my tail. By the time I get over to you and try and switch spots, more aliens will have come and there's no way to guarantee that we both won't get bogged down." Peter argued.

He had a point, they could all tell, but all of them also felt very against the whole idea, like something would go wrong at any second.

Peter, however, didn't even wait for their response, and Tony pulled up a feed from Peter's suit to watch what was going on. And yeah, he got a bit more banged up because he was distracted, but it was worth it to know what was happening with the kid. 

"At least if I die, it'll be an honorable death." Peter joked.

"Yeah, no, you're not dying, kid, I'm not answering to May and telling her that you were killed by aliens. No death jokes."

"Hypocrite." Peter muttered, and Rhodey snorted in amusement.

"I may be a hypocrite, but I don't have a scary aunt."

"You have Pepper."

"Fair." Tony conceded, letting out a small 'oof' as the breath was knocked out of him from an alien hitting him in the back. He glanced away from Peter's feed for a moment to gauge his surroundings. It couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes, but his eyes snapped back almost immediately when he heard a loud ticking, going faster and faster. He rapidly glanced around him before realizing it was coming from Peter's feed. Evidently, the rest of the Avengers realized that too, because the comm was suddenly filled with shouts of 'look out'. Tony opened his mouth to try and get his own warning out, but all he could do was stare mutely as Peter backed away, eyes landing on a small red device about 3 feet to his left side.

It read 0:05 seconds.

"PETER, GET OUT OF THERE!" Tony shouted, but it was too little, too late, and by the time the words had left his mouth, the timer had reached 0:00 and his screen was enveloped in a bright flash.

The last thing Tony saw from the feed was the sky and the trees, spinning rapidly, before everything went dark and static filled his ears.

~ ~ ~

The aliens all collapsed; whatever effect the explosion had had obviously taken out the power source. Tony wasted no time in blasting off to Peter's last known location; he could hear the rest of the Avengers doing so as well, and Steve was telling Bruce to get a med team ready.

The Iron Man suit got to the park swiftly... though it wasn't so much a park anymore as it was a large, ugly, black charred piece of land. Tony clenched his jaw and flew down to the center of it, looking desperately for a hint of red or blue.

"Come on, kid, I told you I didn't want to face May," Tony murmured. So I don't have to tell her that her last family member died.

Nope, not going there. 

His eyes caught on an unnatural lump in the flat landscape that he at first had passed off as a burnt tree, but, upon further inspection, spotted glimmers of uncharred red and blue. Once his brain processed what he was seeing, he scrambled over to what was Peter's prone figure. He reached him and his suit opened up and let him out, allowing him to kneel near the kid.

His hands hovered over Peter's form, afraid of causing more damage, and his chest felt tight as he inspected the deep burns covering Peter's back, from head to toe. If his front had similar treatment, no one could survive the severity of the burns- not even Peter with his super-healing. Even now he was pushing it.

He gently rolled Peter over, wincing every single time he heard the crunch of Peter's burnt skin, because the suit hadn't even withheld the force of the explosion and had incinerated right away. Tony felt like vomiting.

He was not a religious man by any means, but he found himself whispering 'pleasepleasepleaseplease' over and over. When Peter was fully turned over, Tony didn't know whether to cry in relief or despair.

Peter's front was almost completely intact, if not a little singed, meaning he at least had a fighting chance. The Spider-Man mask had burned off, as well as a good portion of Peter's hair, and there was a nasty burn running up the side of his neck that would probably scar. But it was Peter's closed eyes and still face that bothered Tony the most. The kid wasn't supposed to be this still; he was always moving and nothing should be able to stop that.

"Ohmygod," he heard a whisper from behind him, and he turned his head to see Rhodey at his right shoulder. Of course Rhodey had gotten here before everyone else, with his War Machine suit.

"His back is even worse." Tony said gruffly, fighting to keep his voice from wavering. "Help me get him up and to the Quin Jet."

Rhodey did so, and when he saw Peter's back, the same nauseated look that Tony felt- and could still feel- washed over his face. They started to try and carry him to the Quin Jet, which was a mere 100 feet away, but it was difficult given his extensive injuries.

Bruce and the rest of the Avengers met them midway to the Quin Jet, and, upon seeing Peter's condition, each had different reactions of their own. 

"We need to get him on the Jet and to Helen Cho as fast as possible." Bruce said, his personal feelings towards Peter getting pushed aside in favor of viewing him as a patient to get the best results possible. "She has the Regeneration Cradle... but we have to remove the burnt layer of skin first." Bruce paused while they all took that in, his gaze darkening. "If we can get that off without him losing too much blood." he muttered, pushing them all on to the Quin Jet and shooting off towards the Tower.

"And what if you can't remove the skin? Because of the blood loss?" Tony asked. Bruce glanced up at him.

"No, no, that's not even the question. We have to remove the skin, otherwise it'll lead to infection as it rots on his body. The question is, will he survive the blood loss implications; plus the amount of skin we're scraping off will make him extremely vulnerable to infection. The skin is the body's main barrier against bacteria. We have to go about this extremely carefully, because if he's introduced to any bacteria while his back is still an open wound, he could very easily die."

Tony reached out to grab Peter's hand, to squeeze it in reassurance- but it was too burnt, and he dropped his own hand back at his side, fingers falling limp.

"Just- do it." Tony said. "Whatever you can do, get the cradle in there, set it to the fastest setting, close the wound up- just, whatever you do, help him."

Bruce nodded. "I'll do my best, Tony. Cho and I will call in Strange, too, to see what he can do."

Natasha stepped forward, resting a hand on Tony's shoulder, warm and solid and comforting. Out of everyone, she seemed the least shaken, though Tony could see a glimmer in her eyes, betraying that she wasn't as emotionless as she let on. "I'll call the kid's aunt." she offered. Tony just nodded numbly.

The Jet landed and the doors slid open, a med team and Cho rushing in to take the gurney before racing back out, Bruce running after them and the rest of the Avengers team trailing behind.

Tony stared after Peter's body as it was rolled out of the Jet, feet frozen in place even as his whole being begged to chase after them, to stay with Peter until this was all over. But he knew it would do no good, and he could only think of 3 phrases bouncing around in his skull on an endless loop. 3 phrases he wished he'd had time to say to Peter before he was taken away, but he was too late now, he was always too late.

I'm so sorry, kid.

Please don't go.

I love you.

~ ~ ~

I'm so evil I know. Yes, this is a cliffhanger, BUT DON'T WORRY, it'll be continued in the next Whumptober chapter, "Delirium"! (I'm not that evil lol)

Please excuse any grammatical errors, I didn't have time to revise this and just wanted to get it out before October 2nd was over... and I succeeded, it's 9:08 PM. But now I have homework to do that I haven't even started on haha this took 2 hours to write what the hell.