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Tony was mentally done with the day before it had even started. But he had promised Peter to accompany him and May on a picnic, and Tony Stark took pride in being man who kept his promises. So, he limped into the elevator that brought him down to the garage, dragged himself into one of his sports cars and set off to pick up his protégé .
He groaned when he left the highway and turned into a road filled with potholes that marked the entrance to Peter´s neighbourhood. Tony was hurting all over - nothing too serious, but enough to make him more than uncomfortable, especially when the car wanted him to witness every bump in the pavement.
He had taken heavy hits in the fight the day before, was covered in bruises and still bleeding from small to medium-sized wounds in several places. He was probably lightly concussed - at least the pounding ache in his head and the slight nausea in his stomach told him so, but he couldn´t be sure since he had not bothered to consult medical after the battle had taken a turn from bad to worse.
But to be honest, the headache might also stem from the indecent amounts of scotch in which he had tried to drown his anger after reaching back, or from the fact that he had just completed his third sleepless night in a row. He had actually planned on getting to bed early yesterday, not wanting to show up all zombie-like on Peter´s doorstep, but the debrief-turned-lecture had taken till 2 in the morning, and then his armour had been in dire need of repair, which was something he never, ever put off to later.
When he had been done mending the suit, the sun had already been up, and weighing the benefits of two hours napping against the amount of energy it would have taken to drag himself out of bed, he had opted for a long shower and a few cups of coffee in front of the TV instead. Which had done nothing to improve his mood, since footage of the inglorious battle had been playing up and down on every single channel in the country.
When he pulled up in front of May´s appartment, Peter was already waiting outside, and he couldn´t help but smirk at the happy smile on the kid´s face. He tried to get out of the car as smoothly as possible, but his swollen left knee protested at the movement and he couldn´t suppress a wince when he stood. Peter noticed and opened his mouth to ask, but Tony cut him off when May appeared.
“Pete, you never told me you were hiding a secret sister somewhere?” he joked, waving at May.
“And he never told me that you left engineering and are doing professional boxing now?” she rebutted, taking in the impressive shades of red and blue that decorated Tony´s face, before giving him a tight hug. “It´s nice to see you, Tony.”
As soon as they were sitting in the car, Peter started questioning him.
“What happened yesterday, Mr Stark? You got pretty beaten up, didn´t you?”
Tony frowned while turning down the heavy metal blarring from the car´s speakers. “Ya, kid, not really our most glorious moments. Would rather we don´t talk about it now?”
“But you should have called me! I could have helped, I-”
“No way, kiddo.” Tony gave him a serious look through the rear mirror. “That yesterday was NC-17, that was way above your paygrade. Apart from that, you had an exam, didn´t he?” He nodded in May´s direction for confirmation.
“Phh…” Peter blew out air angrily.
“Still, Tony”, May said in a softer voice, “you look pretty pale, are you alright? We saw you being thrown into that building on TV, Peter was worried all night you wouldn´t show up…”
“Hey, I wasn´t really - that´s not fair,” Peter interrupted her, his face flushing red.
“I´m good”, Tony said, blinking away his ever-growing headache “Have a little faith, it takes more than a few criminals gone wild to bring down Iron Man.”
—
May and Peter had tried hard to produce a perfect picnic, and Tony felt guilty about how he just couldn´t really bring himself to enjoy. He pretended alright, chatting away, cracking jokes and having a competition with May about who could embarass Peter the most. He complimented May on her dress (which was in fact very nice) and the homemade food she´d brought (which was not). But in between, he could feel his mind drifting back to the battlefield, replaying the scenes, thinking about what he could have done different to yield a better outcome.
But the truth was, with a team that practically only consisted of him, Nat and his armours, with Rhodey on comm duty since he still hadn´t been cleared to fight, there was only so much he could do in a situation where they were significantly outnumbered. He didn´t want to admit it, but they would have needed Steve Rogers out there. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He felt himself grow more and more tired over the course of the morning, the lack of sleep finally catching up with him. Every muscle in his body was aching, the bruises and cuts throbbing in the rhythm of his heartbeat. His head was definitely hurting bad now, the too-bright summer sun constantly sending jolts of pain through his brain, and he wished he´d brought some Excedrin. He briefly considered asking May whether she carried any painkillers, but he didn´t want to give himself away, didn´t want to ruin the lighthearted atmosphere by getting them worried over him.
When they finally made to leave, he stood up too fast while trying to help May fold the picnic rug, and the world suddenly dissolved into pixels of blackness. Tony felt himself swaying on his feet, grasped for something to steady himself and only found Peter´s arm. He held onto it tightly while the ground tilted away from him and reality took too long to reassamble in front of his eyes.
When he could see halfway clearly again, he was on the ground, May and Peter hovering over him, their faces tainted with concern. So much for not getting them worried.
“Tony? Can you hear me?” May asked.
“Yeah, I can. I´m sorry, I´m alright”, he breathed while slowly sitting up, feeling shaky and stupid.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Peter asked, his voice high and shrill in Tony´s ears.
“I just, kind of, got dizzy for a moment.” He took the hand Peter offered to pull himself upright, trying to look like he didn´t need it, trying not to let vertigo bring him down again, and trying not to put too much weight on his bad knee.
“You didn´t sleep last night, did you?” the kid asked.
Tony´s silence was answer enough.
“Okay, we´ll get you home and then you rest, Tony.” May said with an authority in her voice Tony hadn´t noticed before. “Just get into the car, I´ll drive us back.”
“Hey, this is a very expensive model, dont break anyth- ” he was cut off with a glance that made him understand why Peter would sometimes be afraid of that woman. He briefly considered insisting that he should drive - it was is car, after all - but then deemed it not worth the argument. Also, he had to admit that he was probably not in the condition to walk a straight line right now, let alone operate a vehicle. He was seeing everything through a blurry haze, and things seemed to be moving at a lower speed than they usually did.
They drove in silence. Tony was too exhausted to come up with anything to say, and Peter, who was sitting at the back with him, was evidently unsure about how to behave. He kept on shooting him worried glances every few seconds until Tony had enough of it.
“Geez, kid, stop glaring. I´m not gonna pass out on you.” It came out harsher than intended. God, he was tired. And nauseous. He was starting to taste May´s homemade blueberry cake at the back of his mouth, and he desperately wished that they would make it back fast.
Peter just looked at him, a little sadness in his eyes. “That wasn´t what I was thinking about. It´s just…you need to start taking care of yourself, Mr Stark. You just keeled over and I, I-” he broke off, looking at May for help.
“Noone would have been angry if you had called the picnic off today, Tony.” she said quietly. “Of course we want to spend time with you, but we would have understood if you had taken the day off to rest.”
Tony knew they were right. But he also knew that the person they were talking about, a person who would cancel commitments just because he´d taken a few hits and hadn´t slept a while, was not and never could be Iron Man. So he didn´t reply, instead opting to lean his aching neck back against the headrest and close his eyes.
—
He woke up to his stomach turning over when May took a particularly narrow curve. “Shit”, he cursed under his breath. That was definitely not how the day was supposed to go. He fought down a gag, tasting bile at the back of his mouth.
“May, pull over, please - “ he urged, swallowing heavily. May took only a few seconds to bring the car to a hold at the side of the forest road. He scrambled through his brain for a viable excuse while unbolting his seat belt with shaky fingers, but he couldn´t find any. There was no time, anyways. He felt cold sweat breaking out over his brow while his stomach went into contraction.
He stumbled out of the car and limped a few meters into the forest as fast as he could, desperate to get out of eyesight, before he bent over and retched violently. He brought up undigested food he had eaten at the picnic, the smell of it making him even more nauseous. He heaved again, pain zig-zagging through his body, his worn out muscles protesting against the strain. His head was threatening to burst into pieces.
It took what felt like years for his stomach to empty itself, and Tony was trying to catch his breath when he heard Peter´s voice hesitantly calling out from behind him.
“Mr Stark, do you need help?”
“I´m good, kid” Tony croaked, his voice hoarse from retching. “Be right back, don´t come he-”
“Oh. Yikes.” Peter stepped out from behind a tree, cringing when he saw the mess on the ground.
“Told you not to come here.” Tony said weakly, wiping a shirt sleeve over his mouth and leaning heavily against a tree when vertigo made the world sway again.
“I´m okay, just, give me a minute.” he breathed, “and please don´t let May see me like this, seriously.”
“Ya, she´s not stupid. She sent me to check you´re not dead.” He took in Tony´s trembling form, frowning. “Not sure what to tell her, though.”
“I´m just….” he trailed of, unable to bring himself to lie to the kid again. “Fine, I´m not okay right now. But I will be, I promise.” He breathed in slowly. “Just took a bad beating yesterday, and I´m not good at losing. But it´s not the first time, and I´m gonna get over it. Just please don´t worry so much, Pete.”
Tony glanced over at him, trying for it not to look pleading. He was hurting everywhere, feeling like he might pass out or puke again any minute, couldn´t get that god-damn fight out of his head, and on top of it all, he had managed to get the kid genuinely upset over his lack of self-care. He had failed on all levels, and he just couldn´t handle all the emotions raining down on him right now.
Peter seemed to look right through him for a minute.
“You want some water?” he offered finally, and Tony gratefully took the bottle to rinse his mouth. He allowed Peter to put a supporting arm around his shoulders while they slowly made their way back to the car.
“You know, Mr Stark,” Peter said when they had nearly reached the street where May was waiting, “I get it that you are upset about that battle. But… I saw the footage on TV. And if I just one day in my life put up a fight like you did yesterday, I´d be really proud of myself.”
And for the first time that day, Tony felt himself hiding not only his pain, but a genuine smile from Peter Parker.