When Peter came back from the dead after the remaining avengers defeated Thanos, he, along with the rest of trillions of beings that had vanished, felt as if no time had past. It had felt as if he had never disappeared; Peter hadn't ever remembered turning into dust in the first place (but he knew something had happened by the way Rhodey had started to ask him whether or not he remembered and how Mr. Stark had immediately and venomously cut off him off and changed the topic of conversation).

It goes without saying that when Peter did reappear on Titan he had been shocked to find out that he, along with the rest of the who had vanished, had been gone for almost 3 months. It was strange really, because you would think that people who had vanished were the unlucky ones, but it didn't think long for Peter to realize that it was actually the opposite. The people who stayed had been forced to live for months grieving the heartbreaking loss of all their loved ones, while those who left felt like nothing had happened. Peter couldn't imagine the sadness that must how taken over the world; he felt guilty to even think it, but Peter was glad he hadn't been alive to witness it. All things considered, Peter felt pretty normal about the whole situation. Well, at least he had felt normal, that is, until a couple of nights ago.

Upon returning from the dead it had taken Peter a surprisingly short amount of time to adjust to normal life. Within a couple of weeks he was back at school and going on patrol (albeit he was doing the latter in secret because Peter was pretty such that with the way May and Mr. Stark have been acting around him since "the incident", there was no way in hell they would let him go spidermaning right now). Even though the whole world was still shaken by everything, everyone did seem to be moving past the whole ordeal, or at least they were pretending to be.

However, a couple of days ago, about a month after he had returned, Peter began to feel...off. It was hard to describe really, he just woke up one morning feeling sick, which was weird because ever since the spider bite, Peter hadn't gotten sick, he didn't think he could any more. Deep down Peter knew he wasn't actually sick, he felt different than feeling sick, but he didn't know what else his strange feeling could be. He just decided to ignore it and hope it would go away soon. It didn't.

A day had gone by since Peter started to feel weird and it hadn't really impacted him other than the fact that, for some reason, Peter couldn't seem to make himself eat. He wasn't hungry and the idea of eating made him neasaus. Although not eating for a day doesn't seem like that big of a deal, Peter knew that with his new metabolism he really should be eating every couple of hours. Not eating was dangerous, but Peter just couldn't bring himself to eat.

"Peter." May spoke, causing Peter to stop, one foot out the door on his way to school. "Come here, you didn't eat breakfast."

May was frowning at Peter, with that concerned look in her eyes that almost seemed to be permanently there ever since Peter came back. She worried too much, even if she tried to hide it, Peter was well aware of the pain she had gone through when he was gone. They didn't talk about it, but Peter knew, and it killed him to see his aunt like this.

"I was going to grab something on the way to school" Peter responded, still not leaving from his spot in the doorway.

May narrowed her eyes and said sternly "Come here Peter."

"Mayyyy…." Peter whined, rolling his eyes, but he walked over, knowing better than to argue with her. "Come on, I'm going to be late."

"You need to eat," May completely ignored Peter's complaints as she moved towards the oven and turned it on. "Don't think I didn't notice you didn't eat last night, you need to eat Peter."

She turned to give him a stern look before immediately turning back to the eggs she was cooking. Peter felt his cheeks redden in embarrassment, he thought he had done a good job of hiding his lack of eating.

"I'm just not that hungry right now" Peter mumbled, still standing uneasily, shifting from foot to foot. "And I really need to get to school."

"Wait." May stopped abruptly to turn completely to face Peter, her eyes shone with newfound concern. "You're still not hungry... Is everything okay baby? Are you sick? Wait, can you still get sick with this spider thing? Oh god, I'm still so new to this I don't know what to do. I have to call Tony, he'll know-"

"May clam down" Peter interrupted, taking a step forward to put his hands on May's shoulders in reassurance,"I'm fine, I swear. You don't have to call Mr. Stark. I'm just not that hungry right now, there is nothing wrong."

"But with your new metabolism you need to eat more often or you could get really sick."

"Yeah but… wait. How do you know that?"

"Tony told me."

"Mr. Stark told you that?" Peter questioned, with annoyance clear in his voice. Had May and Tony been talking about him without his knowledge? The thought filled Peter with anger, he wasn't some little kid that needed to be looked after "When?"

"When do you think? I made him tell me everything he knew when I found out about your night time activities." May turned to give Peter a another little glare, she was still upset he didn't tell her. "Listen Peter, just sit down and eat, I'll drive you to school."

May started putting all kinds on food on the table, looking at Peter expectantly. She was clearly waiting for him to sit down. Peter stood still for a moment, having an internal debate with himself as to whether he should just bolt out the door or sit and pretend to eat. It only took a moment before Peter went to sit in front of his aunt, he knew there was no way that he would be able to get away with running off, not after what happened.

May nodded approvingly at him and turned back to finish cooking the eggs as Peter began to play with the toast in front of him, not able to force himself to put it in his mouth, no matter how hard tried. As Peter watched May cook, her back to him, the teen stuffed pieces of toast into his backpack so that when May turned back she would see an empty plate. Yes, Peter did feel somewhat guilty about it, but he just couldn't eat and there was no way he was going to tell May, she would blow everything out of proportion and probably go tell Mr. Stark, who would also go and blow everything out of proportion.

"Good job Peter, wasn't so hard, was it?" May said sarcastically after turning back to see Peter's empty plate, but Peter could also hear the slight relief in her voice. Gosh, she worried too much. "Now finish eating these while I go have a shower. Then I'll drive you to school."

She placed the eggs in front of Peter, gave him a quick kiss on his head before walking out of the room. Peter's heart ached, he hated lying to someone he loved so much, but he couldn't have her all worried about nothing….It goes without saying that the eggs ended up in the garbage, hidden beneath a few ripped paper towels.

Darkness. That was all Peter could see. He couldn't think or breath. He was alone. Peter tried to move, yell for help, do anything, but he couldn't. He was stuck in this place of nothingness that felt infinitely big. The teenager had never been more scared in his life. All he could hear, in his mind was the echo of the same words. I don't want to go. I don't want to go.

With a start Peter woke up, sweaty, trembling and starving. He realized he had been having a nightmare, a terrifyingly real nightmare (it felt SO real that Peter swore it had happened… but he couldn't remember).

It had been three days since Peter had begun to feel sick and it was only getting worse. Now, not only could he not stand the thought of food, but he also kept waking up in the middle of the night. He was having nightmares, but couldn't seem to remember what they were about, only that he felt very scared and alone. And, of course, those same five words, "I don't want to go". Peter trembled, wrapping his arms around himself; even thinking those words sent a chill down his spine.

Everything was really beginning to take a toll on Peter, the lack of food was making him feel very weak, and the lack of sleep was not helping at all. The boy wished he could just take some sleeping pills, but they didn't work with his new metabolism. The only thing that could work was a specially designed sedative that Mr. Stark had made for him, but Peter knew he couldn't ask his mentor for some with him freaking the hell out. Like seriously freaking out. Mr. Stark had been doing that a lot lately, without reason. He would take Peter's sleeplessness way too seriously, like he took everything lately (or at least anything involving Peter). Peter couldn't have that. No he would keep this is himself.