It was the hardest thing in the world, waiting for Peter to come home.

You felt like it was all you could do, and it was an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. You wanted to find him, know he was safe, and just protect him.

You knew you couldn't. He was stronger than you in every way. You were just a normal girl; your involvement would only be a pain.

You stayed with your family in your house. No one dared leave; it was the end of the world outside. Rumor was the Avengers had gone to space, which seemed dumb to everyone but you. In a world where aliens came every few years, it just made sense.

Fights still went on outside. You were always tempted to see if it was Peter defeating the giant, terrifying creatures that terrorized your neighborhood, but you couldn't look out.

Often you thought about the bus. You thought of how he grabbed you, held you close, and how he looked at you with that look of pure dread. He must have known things were bad. Maybe he thought he was going to die, and that was his goodbye to you. He couldn't say the goodbye he wanted, so he showed it to you in those brown eyes.

You didn't want that to be true.

You had a goodbye of your own that you wanted to convey. You just wanted him to know how you felt, that not only did you care about him more than anyone, but you would be lost without him, would feel broken forever if you lost him.

I love you, you would have said. I love you in every single way possible.

But you couldn't sat it, and you couldn't get ahold of him. He had left his backpack on the bus and you had taken it home, not even giving it up to Aunt May. You clutched his phone in your hand and switched on the screen several hundred times a day, seeing the picture of you and him together as his lockscreen. You did this for days, until his phone finally died and you couldn't anymore.

Whatever was going on out there, it was threatening to take him away from you.

...

The fights were getting harder. Hope was beginning to be lost. Many innocent people died in front of him, right before he could save them. When he saw their mangled bodies, he thought of you.

What if it had been you-

He was always thinking of you, and sometimes it nearly killed him.

He had become painfully aware of how important you were to him. He ached at the thought of you getting hurt until he thought he might make himself sick. He prayed nothing would touch you, that you would be able to either stay in your home or get out of the city altogether. He prayed and prayed and worked so hard to take down any monster nearby.

But it wasn't easy, and there weren't many victories.

Mr. Stark had given it his all, and it was slowly beating him down. But the battle wasn't even near over, and they had more plans. Plans to leave New York and fight elsewhere.

In the Avengers compound, heroes sat around. None of them smiled anything but bitter grins. A lot of them drank. Some of them trained, but not much. And while Peter did hang out with Peter Quill and listen to eighties music and sit with Doctor Stephen Strange and watch his - as Peter called them - "cool tricks", he mostly just followed Mr. Stark around, offering support when he could.

Finally, Mr. Stark broke down.

It was hard to tell if he was crying, but he rubbed his eyes and then sighed, running a hand through the scruff of a beard that got fuller every day. He looked at Peter sadly and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said.

"We can beat him, Mr. Stark," Peter said. He had repeated this a million times. "I know we can. We have the Avengers and the Guardians and the Revengers and Stephen Strange-"

"It's not enough, kid," he said. He shrugged. "I don't see an end to this. Not a good one, anyway."

Peter looked down at his knuckles, all busted and covered in bruises and cuts. He rubbed the end of his forefinger with his thumb.

"I'm doing what I can," he said. "I'll get you home to your aunt, kid, I swear."

Peter nodded, not trusting his voice. Would Mr. Stark think he was weak for crying?

"That girl you told me about," he said. Peter looked at him. "The girl you worry about. Is she close?"

"About three miles away," he choked.

Tony nodded. "She should leave the city. They all should, really." He ran a hand through his hair. "I am going to ask FRIDAY to issue an alert to everyone within a ten mile radius and tell them to evacuate-"

"I'll tell her," he blurted. "I'll go right now."

Tony hesitated. "I don't-"

"Please, sir," he said. "Twenty minutes. I just- I need to see her."

"Kid," Tony said as patiently as he could manage, "think about this. We could need you any minute, or something could happen. I can't risk it."

"Please," he begged, feeling his eyes fill with tears. "I-I can't see Aunt May and be with her, I can't tell if my friends are okay. She's so close and so important to me, Mr. Stark. I need this, okay? Twenty minutes. I'll stay on call with you! Anything." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Anything. Please."

A flash of sorrow crossed Tony's tired eyes. He felt for the kid, the kid too young to be mixed up in this screwed up situation, the kid that looked at him more and more like a son would his father every day. He couldn't say no, so he nodded.

"Twenty minutes, stay on call," he said. He jabbed a finger towards him. "I mean it, kid."

Peter almost cried in relief, hearing those words. He was going to see you.

He was going to see you.