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Something was out of place. Tony could feel it, vaguely, beneath the surface of his skin. He laid back on the medbay bed, Rhodey clicking at the computer to start up a scan.
“It doesn’t hurt though,” Rhodey clarified, not looking away from the screen.
Tony shook his head. His shirt was abandoned somewhere on the floor, his chest a mass of healed scars where the arc reactor once was; the skin at the centre almost concave against his sternum. “It just feels odd.”
“Odd,” Rhodey muttered, then stood back as FRIDAY whirred to life, a blue wave of energy scanning up and down his body.
A moment later, there was a beep, and Rhodey span the screen around so Tony could see the damage too.
“What is that?”
Rhodey pulled a face. “It’s like your rib is just out of position. You just woke up like this?”
“Yeah. I mean, I got punched in that area during sparring the other day – Happy had a field day with it. But, I didn’t feel anything until today.”
Rhodey shrugged. “Bones, man.”
“Bones, man,” Tony agreed, in the same disdainful tone.
“It might go back into position – it doesn’t seem dangerous necessarily, but it’s probably not good. Maybe call in one of your doctors for an appointment?”
Tony hummed, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Yeah, I’ll see who I can get in for this afternoon.” He noticed Rhodey’s gaze latch onto the scarring of his chest for a moment too long but said nothing. It happened a lot, whenever he was shirtless. In his youth, he adored the gaze, but now it felt unwanted. The mangled skin on his chest. What it represented; what it used to hold.
Tony shook his head and slipped onto the floor, Rhodey turning back to the computer screen.
“Just take it easy until the doctor gets a look,” Rhodey said.
Tony nodded, picking up his shirt and pulling it back on. “Kid’s coming over at noon. If you want a say in what we eat for dinner, pick something before then.”
-
The appointment was set for two pm, and Tony spent the rest of the morning on the sofa with Rhodey, catching up on shows neither of them really watched in the first place. Rhodey was always a busy kind of guy; if he wasn’t in physio, working on his legs, then he was at work or on a mission as Iron Patriot (cough War Machine cough). Tony was busy too, but not to responsibility, necessarily – he just liked to be on the move, doing things, building things, at work.
Sitting and watching a TV show wasn’t something he spent his time on – not when he was making thousands of dollars every second by simply breathing. Sometimes he tried to earn that money – sometimes, more recently, he spent his free time with a certain spider child who’d wormed his way into Tony’s life and proven to be some source of comfort that he hadn’t seen coming.
Tony Stark didn’t think he had a paternal bone in his body until he met Peter Parker.
-
Peter came rushing in with a spring in his step. His hand was rummaging through his backpack before he was even in the room.
“Mr Stark! I’ll be back, just give me five minutes-”
“What’s going on?” Tony asked, looking over from the sofa, recognising the fabric of the spider suit that Peter was pulling out of his bag.
“The bank right outside the tower—hostage situation,” Peter said, wide-eyed. “I ran up here as fast as I could.” Peter was pulling his hoodie over his head, and as soon as he could see again he paused and turned to Tony. “Mr Stark,” he whispered. “We should tag team it.”
“Tag team it?” Tony asked with a raised eyebrow. Rhodey watched the interaction with amusement.
“Come on! Like when you came patrolling with me last month! It’ll be fun – or, uh, super helpful to the city at large, because we’ll be saving lives and doing our duties as heroes-”
“Alright, alright,” Tony said, huffing and pulling himself out of the sofa. There was a twinge of oddness in his side, with the strange, out of place rib, but he pushed past it. “Rhodey, you wanna come?”
“Yeah, Mr War Machine? Come with us!”
Rhodey looked between the two before shaking his head. “I don’t have the suit here with me,” he said. “I’ll monitor from here, alright? And maybe finish this Brooklyn Nine Nine episode.”
Peter rolled his eyes, yanking his shoes off and leaving them in a pile with his hoodie.
“Take it easy,” Rhodey said, quiet, with a pointed look at Tony.
“You worry too much,” Tony replied, throwing out his arms and calling his suit to him.
-
They landed only a minute later outside the bank, the street already cordoned off and news vans in the area. Crowds had already formed on the sidewalk, and the police looked up at the sight of Iron Man landing and Spiderman skidding in on a web.
They spoke briefly, a plan forming. The negotiation had been going poorly so far – there were eleven hostages, four gunners, and they were all well out of sight of the windows. They hadn’t been responsive so far, but with the confirmation that people inside were already dead, knew they had to tread carefully.
Tony didn’t necessarily like the plan, but he agreed to it anyway and watched Peter perk up and leap upwards, throwing a web to the top of the building and shooting up and over the roof. He’d go in from the back – there was a small window back there – and get a better look at the situation with his spider drone.
A minute later, the feed came in; four gunmen, two on the hostages and two talking in hushed voices, further away. Faces came up, too; three of the four had previous criminal records, Karen found out.
The officers organised themselves before the assault. Peter was insistent that he could protect the hostages from the two – he said he’d done it before – and besides, it was more likely that with the shock of the attack, the gunners wouldn’t immediately run behind their human shields.
It felt like a hope more than a fact, but they moved anyway.
It happened in a second; the assault through the doors – both back and front – Tony entering with guns blazing. At the back of the bank, one gunman was already hanging in a cocoon and the other was fighting with Spiderman.
Bullets flew, pinging off the armour and lodging into walls.
Within a matter of seconds, it was over. Four gunmen subdued or shot, the eleven hostages all sounding off.
“Told you,” Peter said, though he didn’t sound smug. Tony knew he got a rush from these kind of things. Then, all at once, the eyes of the Spiderman suit widened with Peter’s, and Tony saw a fifth gunner jump out from the office; running to hide behind a standing hostage.
Peter span at the same time as Tony threw his arms forward, the suit leaving his body piece by piece and bolting across the room to surround the woman. Her arms were tied behind her back but the suit snapped the restraints, enveloping her just as the gunner reached her side-
Rather than being able to grab her, gun to her head, the Iron Man armour took him by surprise. Peter was already half way across the room, Tony running, the officers raising their guns.
Peter shot a web that knocked the gun from the guy’s hand and leapt to pull the suited hostage away, his sixth sense already seeming to know Tony’s movements. Tony reached the guy just as the armour was behind him and punched as hard as he could.
Those boxing sessions with Happy and the sparring with the Avengers really paid off. Tony punched so hard on the first hit that the guy went down, groaning and grabbing his nose, blood pooling in his hands.
There was a beat of silence before the officers reached them, grabbing the guys arms and pulling them behind his back.
“Oh my god! Mr Stark!” Peter said and Tony knew he was grinning. “That was so cool! I mean! Totally dangerous and scary but so cool!”
Peter was pulling him into a tight hug before Tony could blink. They didn’t hug often, but when they did one of them usually said something snarky about reaching for the door or trying to get the stapler or practicing yoga, Mr Stark, I’m into that now. This time, it was a tight hug, hopped up on adrenaline, and Tony rolled his eyes until he felt it-
It was like a pop. Or a slip. Or a low-pitched gentle shove.
He couldn’t accurately describe the feeling of his rib moving back into place.
He grunted.
“Oh, shit, was that too tight?” Peter asked, immediately letting go.
“Language,” Tony mumbled, rubbing his side. It actually was incredibly tight, but he waved that away. “I think you just slipped my rib back into place.”
The eyes of the suit doubled in size. “You had a dislocated rib and you didn’t say anything?” Peter asked. “And you still came down here? And you still took off your suit?”
“Oh, speaking of,” Tony realised belatedly, blinking. He turned and called the suit back to him, and the pieces started to unravel from around the woman they’d connected to. She still looked utterly in awe of the entire process, and he sent her a short salute when the suit was firmly in place and the helmet retracted. “It’s fine, Spidey, really.”
Peter was still mumbling things to himself, but Tony rolled his eyes good naturedly, patting him on the back and directing him back out to the street.
Tony carried Peter back up to the tower, and they entered through via the balcony, finding Rhodey on the sofa, not at all monitoring the situation and having started a new Brooklyn Nine Nine episode.
“I trust it went well,” Rhodey said, mild.
Peter yanked off his mask. “He had a dislocated rib, Mr Rhodes! He went down there with a dislocated rib! And he moans when I don’t tell him about a cold!”
Rhodey snorted then glanced over. “Had? Past tense?”
“The kid hugged it back into place,” Tony said.
“Bones, man.” Rhodey shook his head, amused.
Peter nodded, a look of sincere agreement on his face. “Bones, man.”