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Peter slumped down the wall of the alleyway he found himself in. The mugger he had been stopping was webbed to a light post at the entrance, so he should really get away from here before the cops showed up but - “Peter, you appear to have been shot. Can you make it to an adequate medical care facility, or should I call Mr. Stark?” - yeah, that minor detail.
God, he really didn’t want to call Tony. They had come to an agreement that if he could get to medical help when he was hurt then Tony and May wouldn’t helicopter-parent him. They’d both be notified - they weren’t that laid back - but if he wanted to deal with it himself, then they would let him. So, all he had to do was get to the Queens medical facility that Tony funded, and he’d be golden.
Peter stood shakily, “I’ve got it, Karen.” He shot a web to a fire escape about halfway up the building across from him. As he went to pull himself up the bullet in his shoulder made itself known. Peter hissed. Okay, maybe not his best idea. He needed to get off the ground though, the police sirens were getting a little too close for him to still be sticking around. He fired a web at the ladder of the fire escape, thinking that if he could just get to the roof of the building, then he might be able to roof-hop his way to medical. He gave a firm tug on his web. Nothing. The ladder didn’t even budge. No way that was up to code. Alright, wall crawling it was then. With one good arm. This should be fun. Peter made his way over to the wall and grit his teeth; he’d been hurt worse before, he could make it to the top of a five-story building.
When he finally reached the roof, Peter was pretty sure he had invented a few new swear words on the way, so that was a fun silver lining. His legs all but gave out underneath him as he sunk to the floor. There was no way he was making it to medical. “Okay Karen, yeah, maybe calling Mr. Stark is a good plan.”
Tony picked up on the first ring. “Peter. What’s wrong?” Well, he didn’t sound upset, so that was good, but he definitely sounded worried. Which was almost as bad.
“Hey Mr. Stark. I, uh,” There was no avoiding this. “I may have gotten shot.”
“You may have?” Okay, now he sounded upset.
“Yeah it, uh,” he let out a painful groan. “it seems like a pretty solid possibility at this point.” Peter gave into his body and let himself relax the rest of the way so he was lying down on the roof of this random building.
“Can you make it to medical?” Tony knew the answer to this, he had to. If Peter was calling, that meant he needed help. But still, Peter appreciated Tony giving him at least the appearance of independence, even if the man was probably already in the process of suiting up.
“So, like, normally I’d totally say yes, but they might have shot me in the shoulder and, I gotta say Mr. Stark, that makes swinging really suck.” His laugh was strained even to his own ears.
Tony let out his own humorless chuckle. “You’re gonna be the death of me, kid. I’m on my way, don’t do anything to put strain on your shoulder until I get there. You think you can manage not to hurt yourself for five minutes?”
“It’s not like I was trying to get shot!” Peter actually had the audacity to sound annoyed.
He was met by a silence in which he could perfectly imagine the eyebrow Tony was undoubtedly raising at him right now.
“Fine, yeah, whatever, see you in five.”
----
“Evenin’ Sunshine, good patrol?” The Iron Man armor hit the roof with a solid thunk.
Peter was still lying on his back, now with his good arm thrown over his eyes. “I feel like I should have a comeback prepared for that but I’m too busy trying to focus on not being in pain to be witty.”
“Okay, so we’re admitting we’re in pain now, that a step at least.” Tony’s voice was slightly metallic from being filtered through his mask, but he still sounded smug.
“Hey, I called, didn’t I?” Peter lulled his head to the side to look at his mentor. Tony raised his faceplate in response.
“Sure did kiddo, and I’m proud of you. I’d be more proud if it didn’t take immobility to get you to do it, but proud nonetheless.” He hit Peter’s good shoulder, in what was no doubt supposed to be a reassuring manner, but all it did was make Peter groan as the movement disturbed his wound.
A sigh, “Alright buddy, here we go. Going up.” Tony worked his arms under Peter’s knees and shoulders respectively and hoisted him up.
“Aaaaarrrr Mis’er Staaaark, that huuurts.” Peter knew he was whining, but he didn’t really care. There was a bullet lodged in his shoulder and honestly? He knew Tony tended to take it easy on him if he whined or brought out his puppy dog eyes.
The armor’s faceplate clicked back into place and Tony’s voice was iron again, “Yeah, well, next time don’t get shot.” He walked the two of them to the edge of the roof before looking down at Peter again. “Alright kiddie, big jolt then hopefully it won’t be too bad.” And suddenly they were flying. Take-off wasn’t pleasant on his injury, but repulsor flying was about as smooth as one could ask for and right now Peter wasn’t really in a position to be choosy anyway.
----
They had been in the air for a couple minutes, just letting the city pass by in silence. Normally Peter would be talking a mile a minute getting to fly with Iron Man, but currently he was a little preoccupied putting pressure on the hole in his shoulder and trying not to make any audible sounds of discomfort. He wasn’t even really paying attention to where they were.
Tony must have decided his silence was too unnerving and looked down at him, “You still with me, bud?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Peter lifted his head from where he had tucked it into Tony’s chest and looked at the view for the first time. It was gorgeous, but as he took in their surroundings, he realized they were on their way to Manhattan. “Wait why aren’t we going to Queens med?” Tony had started funding a medical care facility in Queens pretty much for the express purpose of him going there when he got injured patrolling (Well, not officially, as far as the public was aware it was community outreach, a place for homeless or uninsured people to get basic medical care without having to worry about the cost. Just a good PR stunt from Stark Industries. They didn’t need to know about the room in the back with the window that was always unlocked and a doctor on-call who knew the ins and outs of Spidey’s specific medical needs and was so wrapped up in NDAs she couldn’t even legally say she worked there), so Pete had assumed that’s where they would be headed when Tony picked him up.
“Pep was with me when you called.” Even through the robotic tone Peter could hear the amusement in Tony’s voice. “There’s no way she doesn’t already have a room ready for you at the tower and you’re not bleeding out enough for me risk going against Pepper.”
“Uuuuuuhg.”
Hearing Iron Man laugh was weird and hearing him laugh at your emotional turmoil was downright bizarre. But this was Peter’s life. “You think that’s bad? Just wait until May shows up.”
Peter let out a full-on whine at that, “Did you really have to call May?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.” Tony adjusted the teenager in his grip then, holding on a little tighter. “Okay kid, landing coming up.”
Sure enough the tower was in sight and the doors to the Iron Man landing strip on the medical floor were open. Pete could tell that Tony tried to make the landing as soft as possible, but it still sent a jolt through his body that had him hissing in pain.
A woman in a doctor’s coat and blue scrubs was waiting for them at the entrance. The Iron Man helmet retracted completely into the suit and Tony smiled at her in greeting. “Nice to see you again, Cho, I’ve got a present for you.”
Dr. Helen Cho looked at Peter and then back to Tony. “Would that present happen to be the Super-Teen with a GSW in your arms?”
“Well, they weren’t lying when they called you a genius.”
Peter lifted his still-masked face from Tony’s shoulder and used his good hand to give a weak wave. “Hi Dr. Cho.”
“Hi Spidey, we’ve really got to stop meeting like this.” She started walking down the hallway, leading the duo to a private room. “Tony, you can lay him down in here, Pepper got a room ready for him.”
Tony looked far too smug as he carried Peter into a room that had way more decoration then should have been humanly possible to do in the 15 minutes since Peter had first called Tony. But Peter knew better than to ever underestimate Pepper Potts. Tony set him down on a bed that Peter noticed was adorned with one of his pillows from his room upstairs. Pepper really thought of everything.
Dr. Cho closed the door and walked over to his bedside, rolling an IV cart along with her. Now that they had some privacy, Peter pulled off his mask and looked wearily at the set-up Cho was getting ready.
“Alright Peter, I’m going to hook you up to an IV so we can take some of the edge off.” They had yet to synthesize a drug that worked well enough against his metabolism to actually knock him out, or at least make him high as a kite, but they’d managed something strong enough to get the pain down from a 9 to 6 at least. “It looks like the bullet’s still in there - that helped slow the bleeding, which is good, but that means we’re gonna have to get it out, which isn’t going to feel great.”
“It didn’t feel too good going in either.” Peter thought he managed a weak smile, but it might have come out more of a grimace.
“I can imagine,” she smiled at him. “Hopefully the meds will help, but I’m gonna have to ask you to stay as still as possible while I work. The bleeding isn’t bad enough that I feel the need to rush into this, so I’ll give you a minute for the meds to kick in before we start, okay?”
“Yeah, that sounds great, thanks doc.” He actually did manage a smile this time as Cho walked back to the computer set up in the corner of the room to monitor his vitals. His head fell back against the familiar pillow and he looked around the room taking in the full extent of Pepper’s handiwork. On the walls were Star Wars posters and pictures of him and his friends, him and May, him and Tony and Pepper, even one of Spider-Man mid-swing holding up a peace sign. There was a big chair in the corner, no doubt for one of his pseudo-parents to sit and worry in, it had his favorite fleece blanket thrown over the back. A table at the foot of the hospital bed held some sweatpants and some of his dorkier pun t-shirts that he had left in his room here. He didn’t stay at the tower often, but Tony had insisted on getting a room set up for him in case he stayed too late at the lab and didn’t want to swing home or if May was out of town and he didn’t want to be alone.
Tony’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “You good, kiddie?” His voice was gentle and full of worry as he spoke from his spot leaning against the wall opposite.
“Mmmm,” Peter hummed in confirmation. “Considering the extra hole in me and all.”
Tony looked like he was about to push himself off the wall, probably to come dote on Peter, but FRIDAY spoke first.
“Boss, Miss Potts is requesting entrance.”
Tony looked at the ceiling before turning to him with a raised eyebrow. He lifted a hand as if to say, ‘your call’. Peter only nodded in response.
“Sure, let her in, FRI.”
The door unlocked at Tony’s response and Pepper came gliding into the room.
“Hi sweetie, how are you feeling?” She asked as she came to sit on the edge of Peter’s bed.
“Oh well, you know, I’m not as young as I used to be, and Spider-baby isn’t as light as he looks.”
Both Peter and Pepper turned to look at Tony once he was done. Peter couldn’t see Pepper’s face from his spot on the bed, but if he had to guess based solely on Tony’s responding wounded look, she was giving the man her patented ‘you’re not as funny as you think you are’ look.
Tony held a hand to his chest in mock-pain. “No?”
“No.” Pepper shook her head before turning back to Peter.
From his vantage point the boy could see both how Tony’s smile grew as soon as Pepper’s back was turned, and the woman’s fond smile that betrayed her annoyed tone.
“I’m fine, Pepper, really, thank you for doing all this, you didn’t need to.”
“Nonsense, you need comfort to heal.” As if to punctuate her point she started running her fingers through his messy mask-hair in a gesture so soothing Peter would swear his shoulder stopped throbbing as bad. Or maybe that was just the meds kicking in.
A soft smile graced his lips, “Thanks Pep, you’re the best.”
An annoyed choked-off noise radiated from the end of the bed. “I’m sorry, but who was the one that literally carried your sorry ass here?”
Peter couldn’t tell if Tony was actually not pleased or if this was just one of his weird dramatic jokes. He decided to go with a joking response because, either way, Tony tended to respond best to humor. “Yeah, yeah Mr. Stark, you’re pretty okay too I guess.”
Tony huffed, “Unbelievable. I’ve never been so wounded in my entire life! Teenagers, you can give ‘em the world and it’s still not enough. They’ll just toss you to the curb for a Star Wars poster and a comfy pillow.”
Okay, so mostly joking, but there were definitely some real emotions hidden under there as well. Peter rolled his eyes, “Oh my god, you’re the best too, Mr. Stark.” And then under his breath, “God, so dramatic.”
Pepper had a cheeky grin on her face. “He’s just upset because I’m your favorite,” she stage-whispered to him as if letting him in on some big secret.
At that Tony sounded actually affronted, “Hey now, the kid never said that. I’m still his favorite. Right, Pete?” Tony’s gaze was serious as it found Peter’s and even with super-human pain meds running through his system Peter knew there was no world in which it was a good idea to answer that question.
“Oh boy, I am not answering that.”
Pepper laughed and patted his leg. “Good call, buddy.”
“What does that mean? Am I not -” Tony was making his way over to Peter’s bed, most likely about to go into full interrogation mode, when FRIDAY interrupted. Saved by the bell - or, well, the AI.
“Boss, May Parker is here.”
“Perfect timing,” Dr. Cho spoke up for the first time since Pepper had entered the room. She was clearly trying to hide her amusement at the squabble. “The drugs should be working by now. I’m going to have to kick you both out while I patch up Spidey. You can go keep May company.”
The couple sent playful glares at each other but left nonetheless. Peter could hear them bickering as they walked down the hallway to the waiting area, but he was a little too focused on the scalpel and tweezers Dr. Cho had in her hands to pay attention.