Work Text:
The attack comes out of nowhere.
They’re sitting on the floor in the communal living room of the Avengers Tower. Peter, wrapped in a deep purple hooded cloak in front of the rest of the team, has only his dungeon master’s screen to separate himself from the sprawling mass of comforters and pizza boxes consuming all of the other Avengers.
“So I got my sneak attack off, which is an extra 4d6 damage,” Clint chatters excitedly.
“Yeah, that much extra damage against the king--” interrupts Peter, face scrunched with exasperation and disbelief.
“But! Since I rolled a natural twenty, we double the number of dice I roll, and because I used the enchanted dagger that does extra damage, I get to roll 4d4 and 8d6.”
Peter nods -- it adds up. With a smug grin, Clint holds out a hand, everyone handing him one of their six-sided dice. Natasha blows on the fistful of dice for luck before Clint rolls them (it’s almost suspicious that this happens frequently enough for them to have developed a routine). Clint rolls the dice onto the rug in the center of their misshapen circle, and before Peter sees the numbers he hears a triumphant shout from Thor, who punches the archer’s shoulder in his excitement.
“Jesus, dude,” Peter groans. Fist bumps are exchanged and pizza slices bumped together in cheers. Cap seems to be the only one on Peter's side, protesting the team's chaotic actions. “Cool, so you just stabbed the king for fifty-five points of damage, which is more than enough to kill you by the way. I really need to take that dagger away from you--”
The hairs on the back of Peter’s neck prick up, and he looks up a split second before it hits. A massive chunk of metal -- not Earth metal, this is alien for sure -- is hurtling directly towards them. Without even thinking, Peter finds himself shoving Steve and Bruce away on either side of him.
"Get back!" He barely has time to scream, but still the abrupt warning gives some of the others just enough notice to jump out of the way before the impact. Then, before Peter has time to get out, the metal thing slams into the glass, and everything shatters.
The Avengers spring into action around him. Clint dives backwards for his bow as Tony calls a suit to himself, Thor already preparing to strike with his hammer and Natasha with anything she can improvise. But Peter can’t move. Whatever this is, its movement is accompanied by a mind-splitting screech that paralyzes him where he sits. The tower's emergency lights flash to red around him, and broken glass is scattered everywhere, reflecting the glaring light. Tiny shards have buried themselves into Peter's upper arm, collarbone, and cheek. His enhanced senses, normally useful in this line of work, scream at the overstimulation. Peter’s brain is melting. The foreign object plows into him at full force, slamming his head not just into but through the wooden edge of the coffee table.
The noise emitted from this thing only grows louder, shrieking, grating against the inside of Peter’s head, and it’s all he can do to flip onto his feet as the metal alien thing above him starts to unwind. Some sort of metal appendage flashes towards him -- a pincer, maybe a hook, he can’t tell with the way his head is swimming and his vision blurs, shifting and doubling and impossible to focus. He leaps back, but not in time. He almost doesn’t process the giant metal claw snagging against his flesh until he’s clinging to the wall with an impossibly wide gash across his chest.
Peter is hurt. Badly. But there are some secrets that must be kept, even from his makeshift family -- some identities he can never reveal. So he does what any freaked out teen would do, and locks himself in his room. With his brain dissolving and sight failing, Peter scrambles to his room led only by a mixture of panic and instinct. He grabs for the spare set of web shooters on his desk and seals the door with webs that he knows would prove useless against most of the other Avengers should they try to force their way in. Mostly, he puts them there to prove that he doesn’t want to be followed.
Hands bloodied and shaking, Peter rips off his goofy, stupid cloak and puts pressure on it over his wound, then collapses onto the bed. He hadn't been binding, instead opting for a baggy old shirt under his equally obscuring cloak. When he realizes that the attack would have easily shredded a binder in addition to his other clothes, he's grateful for that fact. Those things cost money. Plus, he thinks as he peels the remnants of his ratty t-shirt away from his chest, it would be harder for him to manage the injury if he had to work around a binder as well.
He takes a deep breath and reaches up to remove the glass shard that had planted itself in the flesh by his cheekbone. A fraction of its very base protrudes, and Peter is able to grasp it with his fingernails and pull it out slowly. It's about an inch long and only a third of a centimeter wide, but spindly, and horrifyingly pointed, and covered down to the tip in his blood. Peter is going to be sick.
He puts on the Spider-Man mask to help provide a sensory barrier between himself and the battle beyond his door, and squeezes his eyes shut. When the fighting stops, Peter’s privacy only lasts another five minutes.
“Well, that cloak is ruined,” says a voice from across the room. Peter jumps up, and then immediately regrets it. His head is still spinning from earlier.
“Nat, please,” he begs as his teammate strides towards him. He’s surprised when she doesn’t try to grab him and force him outside for medical attention. Instead, Natasha sits down on the edge of his bed and fixes him with her signature look. “H-how did you get in here?”
She doesn’t answer, but the door to his closet has been opened. Peter sighs. He'll ask Tony about it later.
“You’re bleeding,” she acknowledges, and if Peter hadn’t known her, he might have thought her entirely unconcerned.
“Yeah. I noticed.” Peter reaches up to press his fingers against the back of his head, just above where his neck ends, and sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. Natasha’s eyes remain fixed on his chest. Most of the vulnerable area, including the cut, is safely hidden beneath what's left of the cloak, the rich purple of it blemished with dark, sticky red. The ragged edge of the injury peeks out an inch or two below the range of the folded fabric, blood oozing out of it and down his side to stain his Fantastic Four-print bedsheets. At the reminder of the wound’s inconvenient placement, the threat of being outed in order to get help, Peter shakes his head.
Natasha gives him a questioning look, but when he opts not to respond, she presses deeper.
“Peter," she says, steady, "why don't you want us to help you?”
“It’s really not that bad.” Peter tries to laugh, but it quickly turns into a shuddering exhale as he moves to pull another glass shard out of his flesh. This one comes out of his arm, between his collarbone and shoulder. It's small and blunt, not like the other one, but the sight of it still makes him nauseous. Looking at the area with the highest concentration of glass fragments makes him feel like a game of Operation. He hates it. “Just didn’t want to worry you guys.”
“That’s bullshit and both of us know it. You did good, getting yourself out of there, but this," she gestures to the gash, "is bad. You need help.” No response. “You don’t have to tell me. I figured it out not long after we met. You won’t have to tell them, either, but it couldn’t hurt.”
Both of them are silent for a moment, Peter’s face frozen in awe.
“They won’t care. You just need to get help. If you want, I can carry you out there right now, pretend you passed out, and they won’t even mention it when it’s over.” She looks at him dead on, her unfaltering gaze both stern and caring.
“But how did you know?”
“Let’s just say I know all too well what to look out for.” Natasha winks at him, her usual cool demeanor giving way to a warm kind of sympathy. It’s not the pity that Peter has gotten so used to he had come to expect it. Instead, he feels a certain bond, a familiarity he hadn’t noticed before.
“You mean--“ he sputters, but Natasha only nods before cutting him off.
“We need to get you out there. How do you want to do this?”
Peter thinks for a second before asking, “Can you carry me?” Natasha nods, and before he knows it, she has one arm under his back and the other under his knees. If he stains her clothing with blood (and at this point there’s no way he doesn’t), she says nothing.
Peter hears Bruce choke at the sight of his injuries, hears Tony yell something about clearing the way to a medical room. By now, though, his eyelids are heavy under the mask, and Peter allows his facade of sleep to envelop him.
-----
When Peter wakes up, he's in his bed again. The sheets have been changed from the usual Fantastic Four bedspread to a plain, crisp white and grey striped set, but the mess of posters, textbooks, and dirty laundry clearly identifies the room as his. The mask is no longer pulled over his face. To his left, Tony Stark is leaning back in a wooden chair, slipper-clad feet propped up on the bed. The nightstand is covered in empty mugs that hadn't been there before, and when Peter begins to stir, he finds the older man sitting upright to press another mug into his hands.
"Morning, sunshine." Peter smiles slightly where he normally would have protested the endearment. "Figured you'd appreciate the caffeine. Also, these." Tony sets down a bottle of painkillers on the nightstand.
Tony is right about the pain meds -- Peter's head feels like it's been hit by a bus. Repeatedly.
Upon further examination, Peter finds the mug to be full of coffee. Creamy, rich, sugary, warm coffee. He uses it to wash down half the bottle of painkillers, probably enough to keep up with his ridiculous metabolism, while Tony talks.
"You passed out after that alien tech almost impaled you, which is completely fair in hindsight. Bruce patched you up, and thanks to your handy dandy healing factor, you should be back to normal within the week." He hesitates for a moment, waits until Peter finishes taking his medication, and then reaches out to pat the teenager on the shoulder. "You're a good kid, kid."
Peter pretends not to notice the sorrow mixed in with the pride. He's not sure how to respond; "thank you" doesn't seem to fit, so Peter just smiles. A few minutes pass in silence while Peter finishes his coffee, and then he asks shyly if they have any food. Almost on cue, Steve enters the room with Natasha close behind, each carrying several boxes of muffins. Steve hands one of his boxes off to the bedridden teen, making idle conversation about the merits of blueberry over apple cinnamon muffins. Through the conversation, Natasha squeezes Peter's hand. The gesture is unnoticeable to anyone else in the room, but it makes Peter smile.
He feels safe, accepted. He feels... good.