Morgan and Tony left later that day, with Morgan squeezing the life out of Peter and Tony clapping him on the back. 

On the dining table was some lasgana made by Logan, since May couldn't cook. Sofia ran out and sat next to Logan. Lisa was at the head of the table, who was eating some veggies with some toast. May was next to Peter, who was happily chatting to the rest of her family. 

Peter just stared at his place, prodding the food with his fork, sighing as he finally gave into hunger and took a bite. 

He swallowed it and dropped his fork on his plate. "I'm-I'm not hungry. I think I'll go to bed for a bit," he lied, getting up and running to his room, closing the door behind him and collapsing on his mattress. 

May kept saying this was his home. Well it didn't feel like it. 

His home was their old apartment which they could barely afford, with the slightly polluted air around them and the tacky furniture which he had loved his whole life. 

The door opened with a click and Logan walked in, locking it behind him. "You left," he noted coldly, dark eyes locking in on his angrily. "Why? Something wrong with the food? Not good enough to meet your standards?" 

"N-no," Peter stammered. "I-I just wasn't hungry." 

Logan glared at Peter. "Oh, really? But just hear me out. I don't like you, kid. I don't like that you hang out with Stark. You don't belong in this family so stop acting so pathetic. You're lucky I gave you a home. You and I both know that you don't deserve one." 

Peter winced and Logan walked towards the locked door. "Never speak of this. Or the consequences will be severe." 

"Yes-yes, sir," Peter stammered. And with that, Logan left. 

Peter had never felt so alone. 

He stared at the mattress, fiddling with the bedsheets subconsciously, eyes often drifting to the open window then to the his bag where his suit was in, then back to the mattress. 

His phone blared brightly and Peter huffed, turning it off silent and looking at the mass amount of messages from Ned, and MJ, and Tony. 

He looked at the most recent one which was from Tony. 

The Starkster
Maguna misses you already. We'll probably be visiting often

Peter's finger hovered above the call button, contemplating how Tony would react if he called. A loud laugh coming from May outside his room made him jump and his finger slammed against the screen. 

The phone rang once, rang twice, and Tony's face popped up on the screen. 

"Hey, kid!" he greeted, smiling broadly. "Everything alright?" 

'You're lucky I gave you a home. You and I both know that you don't deserve one.' Logan's words rattled through his head and he opened his mouth to speak. 'Never speak of this. Or the consequences will be severe.'

He closed his mouth and swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. 

He forced a smile on his face and nodded, for Tony's sake. "Y-yeah," he choked out, shaking hands clutching his phone like a lifeline. "I, um, I-I just wanted to apologise for snapping at you earlier," he said quietly. "I, I really shouldn't have, I just got a bit overwhelmed." 

There was a beat of silence, and Tony's smile softened. "It's okay kid, you don't need to apologise. I understand that it must be hard to come back and find that everyone's moved on..." he trailed off. "Anyway, we'll see you in one week or something, Pep has an SI meeting and I have to work on renovations for the tower with Rhodey so I'll see you then." 

"Wow," Peter said. "You really are going to be coming up here a fair bit."

There was a slight twitch in Tony's features, and his lips turned downward for a second or so and Peter was starting to believe all that smiling was just a facade. He tried to not let his face fall. For Tony's sake. 

He pressed his back against the wall, and his shoulders slumped down. "Well, I can't miss out on seeing my favourite Queens kid, can I?" Tony asked, easening out the tension. His smile relaxed, and he met Peter's eyes through the screen. 

Peter still couldn't get over how much older Tony looked. He had more wrinkles, and grey hairs on his goatee and the edges of his hair, and the tips of his hair had taken on a lighter complexion. 

How could Peter miss out on five years of Tony's  life; of everyone's life? It wasn't fair, nothing was fair. 

He felt tears fill his eyes and he stared blankly at the screen, disregarding the fact that Tony was watching Peter, looking concerned. 

"I've um," Peter started to say. "I-I gotta go." He hung up on Tony before the man could even say goodbye and buried his face in his pillow, sniffling away.

The phone didn't ring again. 

Peter stood up on shaking legs and walked to the balcony outside his room. He opened up the locked door and took a tentative step outside, basking in the cool, only slightly polluted wind which whipped his hair around in different directions. His back was pressed against the glass window and he felt himself sit down, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around his legs. Tears slid down his face and he felt himself absent mindedly stand up, and peered over the edge of the balcony, staring at the busy road, full of cars. 

"Jesus kid, you're going to give me a heart attack." 

Peter's heart leaped in his throat at the familiar voice. "I wasn't going to jump," he reassured. "I-I...just missed this place so much." 

The wind brushed the tears off his face and Peter turned, face falling and heart panging upon realising he wasn't talking to Tony, because Tony wasn't here. 

Peter had pushed him away. 

Like everyone else. 

He stepped back inside his room, making sure to lock the door and draw the curtains, turning on the crappy lamp next to his mattress for some reading light. 

Inside his bag he pulled out a Star Wars fanfiction he and Ned had written ages ago and gotten in an actual book print with Tony funding it for them. He both gave them a copy, and Peter was sure he gave himself one as well. 

Does Ned remember this? Did Ned even keep it?

He opened the first page, smiling at the way they wrote the opening scene. 

"We should make this a real movie!" Ned had exclaimed after they finished it and edited it a few times. "We'll be rich!" 

Peter smiled broadly. "Yeah! And we could be the directors! Or-or the actors in the movie! We did base some characters on us, anyway." 

Ned snorted, beaming a smile worthy of the sun. "Yeah, Peter Porkour and Ned Lead, our two main characters." 

"Hey, those names were good! We put a lot of effort into creating them." 

The two laughed, and continued to read through it once more. 

Peter blinked back tears, smiling faintly at the old memories. His eyelids started to close and he put down his book, sinking into his mattress, switching the lamp off, darkness engulfing him as he fell asleep.

He woke up to a bright light, and begrudingly opened his tired eyes. May was looking down at him from the open door, where the overly bright hallway lights were on. "What time is it?" he mumbled, face pressed against the pillow. 

May jumped, obviously thinking Peter was asleep. "Oh, 9:30, I think." She smiled. "Night, Pete." 

"Night, May," he called, and the door closed much louder than he expected. Peter startled at the sudden noise, heart rate picking up. He sat up on the mattress, switching the lamp on and pulling the covers over his knees and sighing. 

His eyelids were half open, and he so desperately wanted to sleep, but something wasn't letting him. 

Something tingled at the back of his neck, but he ignored it, falling back into his mattress and falling asleep promptly. 

*

He was disintegrating - turning to ash. 

He looked up to face Tony, a look of fear in his eyes. The look in Tony's was even worse. "I-I don't feel so good," he stuttered through the pain of his  body trying to mend him back together and failing. 

Terror was evident on Tony's face and Peter felt himself stagger towards him. "You're alright?" Tony said, but it sounded more like a question which  made Peter want to sob, trying to deny the fact that Peter was leaving him. 

Peter stumbled around until he fell in Tony's arms. The man caught him, and Peter caught tears in his eyes which he didn't shed. "I don't know what's - I don't know what's happening. I don't-" he tried to say but Tony only clutched him harder, but his grip wouldn't hold Peter together. 

He started sobbing. "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, Mr. Stark, please." Please. Please don't let me die. Please save me. 

Not even Peter's prayers could stop the inevitable.

"Please," Peter repeated, fighting the urge to scream from the pain of being torn apart from life in such an un-humane way. He stared into Tony's eyes, pleadingly, not bothering about his, 'We're not there yet' quip he made a few years ago and wrapped his arms around Tony's torso, sobbing his heart out. 

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go..." 

Sometimes you've just gotta let go. 

He stopped fighting the pain, fighting the inevitable and his grip on Tony's jacket loosened as the man lowered him onto the uncomfortable rocky landscape of Titan. A single tear fell from Tony's cheek to Peter's nose. 

He felt the rest of his body tear apart, but it wasn't as painful anymore, now that he just stopped fighting. 

His next words - his last words were barely a whisper. He lifted a disintegrating hand to touch Tony's face, to comfort him. "I'm sorry."

The words he most wanted to say remained unspoken: you were the best father figure/mentor anyone could wish for. 

*

Peter bolted up sobbing and shaking with a runny nose. 

His eyes averted to his hands and he let out a sigh of relief, realising that he wasn't disintegrating. 

Thank goodness. 

His bedroom door opened and a bleary eyed Logan stepped through, shirtless with only his pyjama pants on. "You were screaming," he noted bluntly. "In the middle of the night. What the hell is wrong with you?" 

"It was a-a nigh-nightmare," he stuttered. 

Logan's gaze was unreadble. "Nightmares are for little kids. And last time I checked, you're not a little kid. Now get back to sleep, it's 3am." 

He walked out, closing the door behind him. Peter twisted his body around and buried his head in his pillow, sobbing his heart out, still shaking from the dream. 

It's not real, it's not real, it's not real.

He dug his nails into his hands to make sure that he was actually real. When his fingers came back and his palms were tinged with red where the nails dug into, he sighed in relief. 

He turned around so his red rimmed eyes were staring at the ceiling and switched the lamp off, in a hope to get some more rest. 

I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. 

Peter didn't get any sleep for the rest of the night.