A/N: So I've been working on a Homecoming fic since before the credits even started rolling when I first saw it on the 7th, but that is just refusing to come together properly. But the Infinity War footage descriptions that I read today... Oh my gosh. I can't even. I NEED INFINITY WAR NOW. But anyway, there was the one scene of a bloodied, possibly dying Peter apologizing to Tony and I just... my imagination ran away and created this bundle of feels. Also, I have zero knowledge of Proxima's powers beyond the vague "she has super-strength and super-speed." I may have overestimated her powers. And gotten her personality completely wrong. I dunno. I don't read the comics; I just obsess over the movies.

Warning: Mentions of suicidal tendencies.

Tony almost flew faster than his armor could go, desperately fighting off Thanos and his allies. His repulsors fired almost nonstop as he swooped in front of the unarmored and non-superpowered humans, shielding them from almost certainly lethal attacks. His suit was scraped and dented and sparking, and its unmanned siblings lay in pieces across the battlefield, but still he pushed it beyond his limits.

"Thanks," Barton gasped as Tony crashed in front of him, absorbing a blast of energy from the Gauntlet.

Tony nodded as he stumbled back to his feet, his heart pounding a little harder as he noticed the raw terror on the archer's face. Of all the villains they'd faced, all the times he had faced death, Barton had never looked scared. Not until today.

"We'll get through this," Tony tried to promise, but his voice shook and Barton rolled his eyes a little.

"Thanks for trying, I guess. Not that it does much."

Tony shrugged. "Better than nothing, right?"

"You're probably better off telling me to think of my kids," Barton muttered, grunting as he stood back up, brushing filth off his hands.

Tony turned around, searching the battlefield. "Speaking of kids…"

Amidst the ruins, flying bodies, and flashing colors, Tony found him. Peter fought valiantly, his webs firing constantly as he swung around and tried to tie up the villains so the others could get an advantage. Parts of his Iron Spider suit had been blasted to ruin, showing his normal suit beneath, scorched and torn and bloodied.

"I'm keeping an eye on him," Barton promised, loading another arrow.

"You're not very close to him," Tony pointed out, hitting his gloves to jumpstart the repulsors.

"I see better from a distance, remember?" Barton retorted with a faint smirk.

"I can hear you guys, you know," Peter broke in, his voice ragged but somehow lighthearted. "We're all on the same comm. line."

"They're just being sappy old men," Wanda joked from where she stood, flinging up shields and shooting jets of scarlet light.

"Hey!" Tony and Barton exclaimed simultaneously.

The two youngest humans laughed, the sound a brief moment of ease and strength when they were all bleeding and exhausted.

Abruptly, the villain Proxima disappeared from where she was fighting Thor, Quill, and Strange. In the blink of an eye, she was across the battlefield, her spear ready in her hand. With an effortless motion, she stabbed it forward, towards the hero swinging straight towards her new position.

Peter had no time to change course before the spear plunged straight into a hole in his armor – straight into his gut.

"PETER!" Tony screamed. He leapt into the air and darted over, blindly firing his repulsors at the villainess.

Proxima just cackled. "You make your weaknesses too obvious, human."

With that, she threw Peter off her spear and darted away. The teen didn't even grunt as he slammed into a boulder and crashed to the ground. Tony altered course and skidded down beside him, snapping his helmet open and gloves off. With his bare hands, he gently removed Peter's helmet.

"Peter? Come on kid, you're ok," he gasped desperately, carefully turning him onto his back.

Two holes gaped in his stomach, both pouring blood. With shaking hands, Peter tried to cover them, his face already pale and his eyes wide. "I-I'm sorry," he stammered.

Tony pressed his hands down on Peter's, trying to catch his gaze. "No. No, you're not sorry, because you're going to be just fine," he tried to insist, even as his own voice shook.

Peter managed to meet his gaze. "I'm… seventeen, not… stupid," he pointed out, his lips barely moving.

"I know, Pete. You're one of the smartest kids I've ever known," Tony assured him, feeling Peter's blood coat his hands. "Besides me, of course."

Peter's laugh was barely a breath, followed immediately by a weak shudder of pain. "Thanks… Dad."

Agony clutched Tony's heart, squeezing it until it tried to stop beating. It choked him, burned his eyes with tears, weighed his limbs down with guilt.

"Always happy to compliment you, son," Tony rasped, somehow managing to put on a smile. For half a second, the kid managed to smile back.

Suddenly Peter started coughing. His entire body shook with every choke as blood splattered out of his mouth, droplets hitting his face, covering the ground beside him. Tony turned him to his side, moving one hand to support his back.

"Hold on, Pete," he begged. "Just hold on."

Peter just looked at him, his once-excited eyes now full of unimaginable terror.

Tony swallowed back his grief, forcing strength into his expression. "I've got you, Pete. I won't let go."

Peter took a deep breath between coughs, shifting one hand to grasp Tony's. Even though he squeezed with what was probably all his strength, Tony could barely feel it. He struggled to suck in enough air, forcing out a single word. "May."

"I'll take care of her," Tony promised instantly. "And Ned and MJ. I'll do everything I can. Everything. I promise."

With that assurance, Peter gave a final nod. He inhaled one final time. Let his eyes drift shut one final time. Exhaled one final time.

Tucked in Tony's blood-soaked hands, Peter went still.

"Peter?" Tony breathed, tenderly brushing a strand of hair from his eyes. "Pete?"

His young, lifeless body gave no response.

From the silence burst a scream. Tony pulled Peter against him and howled his grief to the sky. Grief and rage and agony and guilt twisted together inside him, bursting out in waves of sound that clawed his throat to shreds. He knelt in the smoking ruins, clutching Peter's cooling body against him, screaming harder than Wanda had screamed the day she lost her twin.

He never even finished high school.

Abruptly, the scream died in his throat. He laid Peter down and snapped his mask and gloves back on, jumping into the air. The battle had raged on while Peter passed on, though some shot a glance at him as he entered the sky. Through the chaos, he locked onto his target.

"You," he snarled, his voice dripping with venom, "should not have killed my son."

With a roar of white-hot rage, he dove to the ground. He barreled forward recklessly, unleashing every single weapon and ounce of energy he had against the alien woman who had killed the closest thing he had to a son. She saw him coming and laughed, swinging up her bloodied spear, pure evil glinting in her gaze as she readied for their fight.

If it killed him, he would not mind.

If he survived… well, he wasn't planning that far ahead.

A/N: So this is now kinda like a choose-your-own adventure thingy. I kinda like this ending for drama reasons, but there was more I wanted to write, so I made a chapter 2. Like this ending? Don't read on. Want a different ending? Read on.