#alongside all of the other freak bosses who don’t understand the concept of recovering

[raceweek]

it has been two weeks but the fact jost capito hasn’t been arrested for going on live tv multiple times to say that he had been to see alex and he was doing well after his surgery and that the normal expectation is for him to be back for singapore when he was literally in the icu is bothering me

[web-of-fics]

17th Street

Requested by: anon (“I’ve never really done requests before but could you do one where the reader has been trying to prevent Peter from dying by going back in time over and over again, only to become distant and cold to Peter who is oblivious by it. Similar to the plot of Madoka Magica if you’ve heard of it. It might be a hard concept to do and it’s ok if you’re unable to do it”)

Starring: Peter Parker x reader (she/her)

Fandom: MCU

Timeline: This takes place post-Endgame (lowkey time travel tech spoilers) but pre-the second Spiderman movie because I still haven’t seen it lol

Summary: Reader, a former Stark intern, struggles to use her own time travel device to rescue her best friend, who has been killed by a chance explosion in her current timeline. She grows increasingly desperate after failing to prevent his death numerous times. 

Writer’s Note: Thanks for your request anon!! I haven’t watched Madoka Magica so hopefully I did the plot idea some justice 😊❤️

Words: 1448

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You rolled across the dirt and slammed into a brick wall. You rubbed your shoulder, frowning, and returned to your feet. Returning from a time jump was the worst no matter how much practice you had through countless jumps into the past.

Contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark wasn’t the first to “discover” time travel. To his credit, his methods seemed much more effective than yours. After all, he had been able to save the entire planet with his invention (and probably the universe).

You were just trying to save one person. And you couldn’t even seem to manage that much.

“Ugh!” you looked at the red blinking message on your white wristwatch. At a passing glance, it looked like any old smart watch. But you had made yours in secret while interning with him. Had Tony been less distracted at the time, he might have picked up on what you were doing. Maybe he still had and he’d let you carry on anyway.

You smacked the screen once in frustration, but not hard enough to break it. You pressed your fingertips to your closed eyes and pulled them away, releasing tension building up behind them. 

Your entire body was buzzing, ready to jump straight back into the past so you could attempt to save Peter’s life again. It was outrageous that something as trivial as a drained battery was enough to stop you for the night. Like when you got really close to the end of a video game but you kept dying right before defeating the final boss. And then realizing that you had no more lives left so you had to start the entire level over again. 

Using the old web shooters you had stolen from Peter’s room ages ago (either he’d never noticed or he’d never minded), you swung your way home.

You stomped up to your lab--which, at this point, was just a corner of your bedroom outfitted with a desk, a swivel chair, a computer with two screens, and a bookshelf--and plugged it into its heavy-duty charger, also secretly courtesy of Mr. Stark. 

You liked the thought that Tony would have given his blessing for its use if he had known about its existence. This was another matter of life and death, but you were certain it was one you could succeed at. Which only added to your frustration every time you had to watch Peter die. 

You changed and climbed into bed, counting the amount of time jumps you’d made that day the way children in bedtime stories count sheep. 

You rolled over and closed your eyes, willing the silent blinking red light of your  watch to turn bright white with new life as you drifted off. 

I’m coming, Peter.

- - - - - - - - - -

Your feet were the first part of you to hit the gravel. You caught yourself before you could fall to your knees, very aware of the bruises that had piled on top of one another during your early jumps. The second you recovered, you sprinted down 17th Street, not stopping until you reached the near-empty pier. 

By this time you knew precisely where Peter would be: hunched over the pier’s edge, gazing into the water as he wrapped up another night as Spider-Man. On your sixth trip you’d managed to learn he was waiting to see the sunrise before going home. 

You had also learned two other things over your many trips into the past: that if you tried to talk to him any earlier in the day, he would die in some other freak accident, and if you did manage to help him escape the explosion, he wound up getting himself killed while trying to save other survivors. Every. Time. 

You couldn’t take it anymore.

Tonight you needed to try something new. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” you called in a dead voice. In your early trips you had sounded much friendlier. Thrilled at the sight of your lost friend, alive and breathing again. Then he kept dying. And you couldn’t help but greet him with the same enthusiasm of a funeral director anymore. 

He didn’t seem to notice your abrupt coldness.

“Y/n? What are you--” you cut him off by grabbing his arm and pulling him along as you retreated back the way you came. You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if he didn’t want to follow. But he did.

“We don’t have time,” you said curtly, glancing at your watch. It was later than you’d thought. You’d cut the timing too close. 

You dragged him past the very boat that was set to explode in mere seconds. Instinctively, he turned his attention to it, twisting his head around to keep it in sight as he tried to figure out why it was dangerous.

Why didn’t he noticed it the first time? Then you wouldn’t be in this mess. 

“What’s going on?” he demanded. He came to a full stop, nearly sending you over. He helped you keep your balance. 

You looked from him to the boat, your stomach feeling hollow and your throat refusing to swallow as it dried out. 

“We have to go now,” you said at the same moment you realized it was already too late.

Peter realized the same thing half a second earlier, but that didn’t give him enough time to respond. It never did. 

His reflexes were still fast as he grabbed you close and shot a web aimed at a nearby lamppost. It missed as he was thrown off his feet instantaneously, dragging you alongside him. Together you flew in an infinite moment, through a fiery debris-laden burst that burned your fingertips as you struggled to tap and swipe at the screen of your wristwatch. Your eyes burned from the smoke, and you could no longer hear the lazy seagulls or the lapping waves or the clanging hooks that stationed the boats. 

As you both began to fall back toward the ground, Peter moved as if to throw you ahead of him so he wouldn’t land with all his weight crushing you. Instead you grabbed his collar to remain in contact. You wrapped your legs around his waist for good measure, realizing neither of you would survive if this didn’t work. 

You squeezed both buttons on either side of the watch face and squeezed your eyes closed. You pressed your face into his chest and held tight. 

The heat that had been chasing you suddenly vanished. The smoke, too. You realized this as you inhaled sharply upon being slammed onto the ground--or more accurately, as Peter slammed into the ground with you on top of him. You slid sideways until you rolled across hard ground, still a lessened impact than if you had no cushion. 

The second you regained your senses you crawled back to Peter, lying with his mask half-off and his eyes closed.

“Peter?” you yanked the mask off the rest of the way and tossed it to the side. “Can you hear me?” you struggled to keep the panic from taking over your voice. As much as you didn’t want to look away from him, you stole a glance at your watch. The screen had shattered but its contents were still legible. 

You’d done it. You were back in your own time, with Peter Parker in tow. 

And hopefully alive.

You smacked the sides of his face gently, but with enough force that you hoped to wake him. You ran your hands over him, feeling for a pulse, a breath. 

You found both. 

You sighed in relief. It turned into a laugh of triumph and Peter finally rolled his head to the side. He blinked his eyes open.

“I did it! We did it! You’re alive, you’re okay!” you said, forcing your tears not to roll down your face. 

“What happened?”

“I’ll explain later,” you said quickly and honestly. You knew he would understand. But he didn’t have to know every detail about your time traveling adventures right then. 

“It’s a long story,” you added when you saw his puzzled face. “But you’ve been through so much I couldn’t let an exploding boat take you out,” you laughed at the absurdity of the idea. 

“Thanks,” Peter said as he began to feel comfortable enough to sit up. “I would hate for a boat to take me out too. That’s pretty lame.”

You swept him into a tight hug, ignoring the fact that you were both wincing from your bruises. You continued to hold him, your heartbeat calming as you breathed the same air as your best friend once more, hoping you would never have to let go.

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