madeupnames | Open RP Post | Endgame Spoilers OK.

[Peter gives the man a little look, eyebrow raising.]

You know, you're probably not allergic to the Starks. You could always just say 'hi'.

[Him being uneasy around them isn't lost on the man; he knows there's something going on there, something Quill's not really being open about, but it's not like they're all sharing-and-caring in the Avengers headquarters. Pete tries his best to get people to open up with him, but he knows he's kind of being a kettle next to a pot, 'cus there's too much he can't dare say aloud. Instead of pressing further, though, he lets the comment hang at that.]

Just us. I can't guarantee it'll just be us an hour from now, but everyone's out doing their usual stuff. I can't promise there isn't flour all over the counters, though, because I definitely... promised I'd clean it up and forgot. Like. An hour ago.

[ At that first comment, Peter doesn't do much more than cut the kid a quick, unimpressed look. Something that says, "Ha ha. Hilarious. So hilarious, I'm not going to respond."

Just as well that the kid doesn't press any further, and Peter breathes out a quick, humorless little laugh. ]

C'mon, then. You can try and put a dent in the mess while I make a sandwich or something.

[He laughs at that, shoving Quill's arm.]

Seriously, dude? You're gonna stuff your face while I'm the janitor?

If you leave anything out for me to mop up, I'm gonna go Grand Theft Auto on your ship.

[... He's not of course, but a little ribbing kind of makes things feel more normal. He doesn't have his best friend anymore to shake hands with, and he doesn't have Mr. Stark to make dumb jokes at. He has a feeling Quill kinda sees him in the same weird way — and honestly, he might feel for Quill the most. He doesn't have anyone else in that ship of his.

... As they walk into the kitchen, Peter groans at the powdery mess splashed all over the big counter island.]

Oooh, boy.

You get anywhere near my ship, and I'll punt you into the sun.

[ Obviously, there's about as much chance of that happening as there is of the kid actually stealing his ship, so— all's fair, Peter figures.

He feels guilty, sometimes, for falling back into that kind of banter. For treating the kid like a Guardian instead of a stranger. He has to remind himself that Pete isn't actually replacing anyone – no one could ever do that – but he wonders if it's unfair to the other Guardians' memory, in some weird way.

Those dark thoughts are chased away when the kitchen comes into view, thankfully. Peter lets out a low whistle, edging around a splatter of flour that had made it to the floor.

Is he helping? Of course not. And he carefully picks his way through the carnage to get at the bread. ]

You sure they were making cookies? Looks more like the Pillsbury Doughboy blew up in here.

[Aw, how'd you know he's always wanted a free trip to the sun? But he's too busy looking at this mess and shaking his head to throw that quip out into the void. There are definitely some suspiciously kid-sized hand prints everywhere. And he has to imagine that Pepper was just smiling the whole time, knowing he'd agreed to clean-up for them. That monster.]

I think they left a big tub in the cabinet for anyone who wants 'em.

... So I guess the question is, how dangerous would it be for us to steal them for ourselves, and are they poisoned by a five-year-old?

Definitely poisoned.

[ In that automatic, mild, and altogether knowing way one uses when reciting a fact. "Water is wet. Fire is hot. Morgan definitely dipped those cookies in arsenic, that scoundrel."

It seems peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a dietary staple for anyone filling in as an Avenger, temporary or otherwise, and Peter is preparing his own. Heavy on the peanut butter, and equally heavy on the jelly. Don't judge him. He's had a long, rough day. ]

But you've got an insane metabolism or whatever. You could probably scarf down half of them, puke it up after ten minutes, and be totally fine.

[He looks up, mildly offended (but only mildly, because he wants a PB&J too, okay.]

I have an insane metabolism, I'm not impervious to poison.

[His eyes brighten slightly, and he's Thinking.]

... I mean, I don't think I am...

[Peter Parker do not touch poison I swear to God—]

You never tried?

[ In that mild, distracted way that says this is definitely a hypothetical question. Of course. Obviously.

Sandwich successfully constructed, he turns to lean back against the counter and takes a bite.

Around the mouthful, ]

I mean, you've been smacked around by dudes using steel beams like you were a baseball, but you've never tried your luck with eggs a few weeks beyond their expiration date?

... I spent most of my life avoiding eating things that kill me...

May absolutely would've killed me first, but you know what I mean.

[A pause. There are plenty of people here who avoid talking about the people they've lost... but Peter's not one of those people. He knows better, to let someone's memory completely vanish because of his own pain. So when he talks, it's without hesitancy.]

I've gotten the flu before, though? As in, I spent days in bed with a raging fever wondering if spiders get the flu, too. I'm pretty sure May was five seconds away from calling 911 on me — I mean, until I begged her not to, because my powers were short-circuiting and everything was sticking to me...

[.................. He clears his throat.]

It was a bad time.

[ His chewing slows briefly, not because he's necessarily uncomfortable talking about the people they've lost, but because he's gotten into the habit of watching when people do. Of deciding whether or not he should try to change the topic, if he should try to distract them as the other person wanders toward some unseen ledge.

The kid handles it better than most, from what Peter's seen, and when he seems to find his own way to stable ground, Peter swallows down his food. ]

Was that pretty soon after you got the superpowers?

Oh, I've gotten sick a few times since I got superpowers, yeah.

... I'm pretty sure we're not counting the time a bio-weapon leaked on me and made me puke for a week straight, right? Because that's totally not the flu. Mr. Stark had to decontaminate me and do all kinds of stuff to make sure I didn't keel over.

[Sometimes he forgets how crazy life is, to anyone but them. This is all... It's just life. That's kind of the nice thing about having friends at Avengers HQ now, y'know? People understand. You're not a kid in high school having to shut your mouth over being on a crashing plane on Coney Island. Or make some big excuse to your classmates to go sight someone trying to poison the water supplies in the sewer system.

... Or distract them when you need to jump out of a moving school bus to fight aliens.

His smile twitches, smoothing into something... unsure.]

... Hey. So. Um.

There was something I wanted to tell you. It's not — not concrete, or anything, but... [He breathes out fidgeting with a washcloth that he slaps up and down against the edge of the counter.] Uuh. There's this guy... Ant-Man. Scott Lang? You haven't met him, because up until a few days ago he'd been stuck in another realm. The Quantum Realm.

He might've given us an idea for something. Maybe. It's a long-shot and it's not even gonna be a finalized thing for a while, and to be honest there's no way I'm gonna be able to figure it out the same speed as someone like Tony Stark, but I have his old data and Dr. Banner and I think, I don't know, maybe...

[He trails off in his fast-worded ramble, not even sure how to approach this topic.

Maybe he shouldn't have brought it up, not until they knew for sure, but.]

[ You know, Peter has absolutely no idea how to respond to any of that shit – the nuclear waste spill or whatever the hell the kid is talking about – so Peter just. Sort of stares, in that sort of blank-faced, startled way one might use when someone else has sprouted a second head.

He shakes it off as the kid's smile falls away, watching him warily as he takes another bite of his sandwich. That's the look of someone who's about to tell you they killed all your plants while they were house-sitting.

Aaand he's starting to see why, once the kid sets into it, spitting out the words in rapid-fire succession – quick enough that Peter isn't entirely sure what it is the kid is trying to say.

Even so, it makes something cold constrict in his gut, even as something brittle and light starts to worm its way into his chest. ]

Spell it out, Parker.

"Maybe" what, exactly?

[Peter sighs through his nose, as he leans on the counter.

This is crazy stuff. Tony should be the one handling it, should be the one standing here — not him. A couple of years throwing himself into research and studies will never make him a Stark. But... If Bruce is here... If he's got people to back him and help him out, it's gotta be worth something. And hell, he knows it'll be worth a lot to Peter Quill, who has had to make do with people who aren't his family.]

You know that really old movie, Back to the Future?

... What if we make our very own DeLorean? Only not a car or — uh, anything that bad ass to look at, but... What if we could go back? Far enough that we can take the stones from the past... and use it to fix our future?

To bring people back. The people who got dusted.

[Tony Stark. Doctor Strange. May and Ned. Clint's family.

The Guardians.]

[ Peter is silent for a long, drawn out moment.

He's regretting eating, because what little food he's eaten sits like a lead weight in his stomach. He sets the sandwich aside, brushing the crumbs from his hands with far more care than strictly necessary. ]

You know that for sure?

[ He asks it slowly, voice deliberately flat. ]

Is this all just a nice fantasy, or is it really something you think you can do?

... I know for sure that we can at the very least collect the stones ourselves.

Once we have them, um. That part's a little wobbly, but...

[He quiets for a moment, absently drawing in the flour on the nearby cutting board. The childish cookie cutters littering the counter only reminds him that he's here and Mr. Stark isn't, honestly, and that's... that's not fair to Morgan. And it's not fair that Quill's flying around all alone, lacking something you can't just replace. And sure, sometimes life is unfair and has to stay that way — like how he lost Ben, all those years ago — but... what if it didn't have to be unfair?]

... It'd be worth a try, right?

[Besides, there's one thing he figured out in his labs that the Starks didn't:

How to replicate the Pym Particles Scott brought in.

So... Maybe Peter has a few additional ideas that he'll keep to himself.]

[ Peter stays quiet, staring at the kid without quite seeing.

There's this bad habit Peter has, he thinks, that the Ravagers had tried their damnedest to stomp out of him. They wanted him jaded, worldly, and cynical as fuck – mostly because that's what it took to survive in the dark fringes of the galaxy, where they operated. But they got to him too late, because by then, at eight years old, he had already been raised on fairy tales and stories about good guys vanquishing evil guys, where movies always ended on a happy note, with everything wrapped up in a neat bow.

The bad habit that Peter has is that in spite of everything, he always hangs on to that little flicker of hope, even if he knows he'll be disappointed.

It's why at length he slowly, reluctantly nods. A part of him wants to be doubtful, wants to dig in his heels and remind the kid how impossible that sounds, but, well. Five years ago he would've thought that one dude snapping his fingers and wiping out half the universe was impossible, too, and he would've been wrong. ]

It's worth a try. Yeah.

[ He repeats it back quietly, voice a little rougher than he wants it to be. He clears his throat, shakes his head a little. Then, ]

So we go back in time. Get the stones. Snap everyone back to life. Sounds easy enough.

[He gives a little nod, then raps his knuckle on the table.]

Good.

[And alright, fine — he couldn't help the grin that pulls at his face.]

... Dude, we're gonna Back to the Future this bitch.

[And y'know, the whole 'time heist' thing Scott's whipped up? Not half bad, Pete's gotta admit. He's up all hours of the night, that first week, running schematics and using as much information as Tony's got in his lab to figure up trials — plot courses, figure out where people can be without them getting trapped eternally in some hellish quantum world. Good stuff, Peter definitely grew a few gray hairs at age 22.

And then they're in it. Like, all-in, no hand rails, no folding your hand kinda in it. Suits are made. People are dispatched. Groups take aim and go for the stones... They lose Natasha. The kinda lose that can't be undone, like Ben, like Gamora. Just. Gone. And there's this horrible period of time where they mourn... only to realize there's little time to mourn. There's a reason Nat was willing to make that kind of play; there's too much at stake for all of them to lose. Natasha, she would have rather lost her own life than end up at the end of a story where they'd failed.

Little Pete stands beside — well, Big Pete, and he can't stop tapping his foot anxiously as they wait for Banner to put that glove on, one that Peter had to build out of bleeding technology he only just lately started to grasp fully. They're all there. Most of them, anyway, and — surely this has to go right. This has to be their shot at giving people back their friends, lovers, families.

Hell, he wouldn't even mind Flash Thompson reappearing in his life, at this point.

He glances at Big Pete, frowning a little but bumping him with his elbow.

His voice is low but full of hard-kept faith.]

This'll work. It's gonna work.

[ It's a mess.

Like, sure, it goes okay, but it's a mess.

He, at least, has the easy job of going after... himself. Back to Morag, in its torrential downpour and barely receded floods, just days before he met the others and formed his new family.

A part of him considered staying, considered replacing himself and going through his own life. How fucked would that have been? To kill himself and be himself, to relive four years of his own life, pretending to not know what he knows now but doing little things to change his future? Avoiding the mistakes with Ego, with Yondu, with the Sovereign. Taking his training with Gamora more seriously. Improving his gear and better equipping his ship with better weapons. Saving Gamora on Knowhere, when the time comes. Taking down Thanos on Titan with their team at full strength.

It'll be a different future from the one he's living in – that branching timeline that everyone seems so keen on avoiding – but it'd be so much fucking better.

He considers it. He honestly does. It's an ugly siren song, that temptation, and after he knocks his past self unconscious with the butt of his blaster, he stands over himself and thinks.

It's only his time-jump buddy that rouses him out of it, sets him back to work at unlocking the chamber doors where the Orb is sealed.

They all come back, minus Romanoff, and when Barton tells them what happened, Peter feels his heart break all over again. She can't be brought back, Barton tells them. He says she's gone for good, and Peter doesn't want to hear that. He wants to believe that they can bring Romanoff back, because if they can do that, they can bring Gamora back.

But Barton insists, and Peter nearly punches him in the mouth. Thankfully, Parker intercedes before they exchange blows.

Peter's mood isn't quite the same after that.

And here they are now, standing on the precipice of something. He has his arms crossed as he stares at the glove, at the stones glittering and glowing faintly on it.

(He was a god, once, what feels like lifetimes ago. He might still be now, in some ways. They shot down letting Thor use it, but Peter wonders – maybe his Celestial heritage might give him a shot at it. Maybe he could use the glove.

Maybe he could bring Gamora back.)

The kid nudges him, and Peter's gaze flits to him before refocusing on the glove. He nods, a little curtly, and for a second, he seems content to leave it at that.

But after a moment, he forces himself to relent. ]

Yeah. It'll work. [ Uncharacteristically gruff, but considering he has literally nothing left, it has to work. If it doesn't, then he's done, he thinks. No more moonlighting as an Avenger, no more haunting Earth because he's too afraid to leave and face his life in an empty ship. Back to space, back to his old life – or what he can scrounge up of it, anyway.

After a second, he clears his throat. Then, a little more gently, ]

You've done a good job. Stark would be proud.

[Peter thins his lips, looks back at Quill with a determined set to his brow.]

He will be proud. When he comes back with everyone else.

[That's what he can only hope for. They prepare to handle the blast — Peter employs the bleeding tech, and the iron spider suit forms over his body. Bruce puts on the glove, as they all take cover behind their respective abilities; Thor puts himself in front of the Peters, eager to be of use, because god if he hasn't lost too much himself.

This is going to work, Pete thinks. It has to. It devolves into concern when he sees the pain that pulls at the Hulk's face — and of course it hurts, it's dangerous, and they could lose more than just Natasha right now. Bruce snaps his fingers, and there's a blinding light and a burst of energy that nearly knocks them all backward off their feet and into the walls of the building.

Peter sucks in a breath he'd been holding, hand grasping around until he feels the leather sleeve of Quill's jacket in his temporary blindness; his sight returns, and Bruce is on the floor, groaning and smoking, his arm damaged.]

Bruce—! Oh, man...!

[He's moving to put a hand on his friend's good shoulder, Thor's hand on the green giant's forehead as he hushes him to be still. Bruce just looks to Quill, his injured look shifting into steadfast hope. "Did... did it work?"]

Open RP Post | Endgame Spoilers OK.

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