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When Peter calls him, Tony figures it’s just to say he’s going to be late.
It’s 1:47 on a Thursday. Peter’s supposed to be here at 4:00, with Happy picking him up at 3:00, but every once in a while Peter will end up late because he wants to finish an essay first or something.
It’s not unusual for either Tony to receive a call from Peter in the middle of the school day. It is unusual for no one to respond when he picks up.
“Pete?” Tony’s immediately concerned, sitting stick-straight in his lab chair as he hears nothing but faltering breathing. “ Peter.”
A strangled noise comes from the other end of the line. Tony’s out of his seat and running to the room where he keeps all his suits in less than a second. Peter’s voice finally comes through the phone. “T-Tony, I - I’m at the hospital. We - there was an accident. M-May is -”
The chill that runs through Tony’s bones might be the coldest thing he’s ever felt.
Please don’t say dead. Please don’t say dead.
Peter’s so young. Way too young to have dealt with as much loss as he always has, and way too young to have more loss added on. He’s just fifteen and he’s already more acquainted with grief than most adults are.
May can’t be dead. She’s one of the liveliest people Tony’s ever met and she would sooner look God in the face and tell him to go to hell than leave her nephew behind.
“She’s hurt, Tony. She’s - I can’t - Tony, I need you.”
Not dead. Okay.
He can work with that.
“What hospital, kid?”
It takes him twenty-five minutes to fly to the hospital Peter’s in, which is precisely twenty-five minutes too long.
He draws weird looks from just about everyone in the hospital as he hurries toward the waiting room - he had his suit fly back to the compound on its own, of course, but it’s still Tony Stark, wearing an old, worn-out AC/DC shirt and jeans and running through a local Queens hospital like his life depends on it.
In his rush to get to Peter, he hadn’t even thought to grab his hat and sunglasses. A fact he’ll come to regret later, perhaps, but couldn’t give less of a shit about now.
He finds Peter sitting in the back corner of the waiting room, Ned and MJ on either side of him with their hands clasped around his. Peter’s head rests on MJ’s shoulder, while Ned keeps glancing between Peter and the text he seems to be typing out with his one free hand. The kid’s eyes are vacant and there’s a gash on his forehead that’s covered with butterfly stitches, but he’s here.
In three long strides, Tony is standing in front of Peter. The kid’s gaze shifts slowly upward, head rising and eyes clearing just slightly when they land on him.
Peter doesn’t speak, but his shoulders visibly relax and he releases MJ’s hand to reach out for Tony. Kneeling in front of the kid’s chair, Tony takes Peter’s hand in one of his own and brushes the hair that’s sticky with sweat off Peter’s forehead with the other.
“Hey, Underoos,” Tony says softly. “You wanna tell me what happened?”
No response.
Tony frowns, glances between Peter’s friends with a look that he hopes says, Explain?
Ned obliges, rubbing his thumb up and down Peter’s knuckle. “They, uh - Peter and May were in a car crash. Peter came out okay, but May is...she’s in surgery right now.”
Jesus Christ.
First his parents, then his uncle, and now this.
Apparently, that’s not all. Ned nods to Peter. “He hasn’t spoken since he called you.”
Some people shut down during highly stressful situations. He’s not surprised that Peter is one of them.
Well. Tony didn’t have any plans today. And anyway, he’d cancel a meeting with every single world leader on the planet for Peter.
An hour passes.
Peter remains silent and out of it. Tony takes MJ’s chair and holds tight to Peter’s fingers, while MJ slides down a seat and rests her hand on Peter’s knee.
People come and go through the waiting room.
The world keeps turning.
Two hours.
Still nothing from Peter or the doctors. The waiting room clock ticks on and on and on, much too loud in the quiet of the waiting room.
The world keep turning.
Five hours pass before a nurse steps into the waiting room and says, “Is there a Peter Parker in here?”
Peter jerks out of his seat, fingers slipping out of Tony and Ned’s grips. The whole rest of their group stands to join him as the nurse walks over to Peter, clipboard in his hand and a sympathetic look on his face. He does a bit of a double take when he sees Tony Stark standing next to a teenage kid in a hospital waiting room, but he recovers quickly.
“Mr. Parker, your aunt made it through surgery with no hiccups.” The nameplate on his shirt pocket says Christopher Baker and he pronounces aunt like ant. Peter’s entire demeanor brightens, but only marginally, as if he’s still afraid to hope. “However, Ms. Parker remains in a coma. The doctors are confident that she will wake up and be able to make a full recovery, but it may be a while before that happens.”
Tony lets out a sigh of relief and hears all three of the kids do the same.
She’s not dead. She’s almost definitely going to be okay.
For the first time in five hours, Peter speaks. “Can I see her?”
“Yes, but, uh - only family, for now.”
Peter’s fingers find Tony’s sleeve. “Can - can Mr. Stark come with me? Please?”
“Um…”
Tony shoots the nurse a look - not the do it because I’m Tony fucking Stark look. More of a come on, man, cut the kid a break look. “I know it’s not protocol because we’re not related by - by blood or adoption or whatever. But May’s family to both of us, alright? And the kid’s fifteen, don’t make him see his comatose aunt alone.”
A moment of hesitation, then a nod.
Tony follows Peter out of the waiting room.
“I feel like it’s my fault.”
Tony looks at him, brow furrowed. Peter doesn’t turn, eyes fixed on his aunt, and doesn’t elaborate either.
May is hooked up to fewer wires and machines than Tony had expected. There’s just an IV line running from her left arm and a heart rate monitor beeping in the corner of the room. Her right leg is in a cast and there’s bandages wrapped around her left wrist, but the hardest thing to look at is her face. Cuts and scrapes and bruises criss-cross along her skin, one of her eyes is completely swollen shut, and her cheeks are missing their usual rosy glow.
All in all, she looks terrible.
God, Tony hates hospitals.
He hates that Peter has to see the only blood-family he has left like this.
Peter has May’s good hand clasped gently in his. His face is carefully blank, almost like he’s deliberately trying not to show any emotion.
Trying not to cry, Tony’s sure.
He almost wishes Peter would cry, at least it’d be less disturbing than this. But on the other hand, Tony’s never exactly thought his comforting skills were up to par.
“How would it be your fault, Pete?” he asks, even though he knows the real answer is that it wouldn’t. There’s literally no way it could be Peter’s fault, but if this is something the kid needs to say, then fine.
“I should’ve -” Peter sniffs, blinking quickly in what’s definitely an attempt to hold back tears. The kid’s practically as emotionally constipated as Tony, it’s terrifying. “I should’ve stopped it. I - I knew the car was coming, I felt it -”
For a second, Tony’s confusion grows, until he remembers. Spider-sense. Right.
“I could’ve warned May, if I’d just - if I’d just been a little faster -”
Yeah, no. Nope, nope, definitely not. He’s not letting Peter beat himself up for a car crash where he wasn’t even fucking driving.
Even if he had been driving, it still wouldn’t be his damn fault. Accidents happen. They’re no one’s fault, or else they wouldn’t be called accidents.
“Kid.” Tony places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. The kid’s head turns and Tony can see his eyes glistening. In the softest voice Tony can possibly muster, he says, “Pete, it’s not your fault. You had, what, a two second warning? You can’t blame yourself for not reacting at the fucking speed of light.”
A tear slips down Peter’s cheek. Tony keeps going.
“And besides, what would’ve happened if you had said something? Your aunt would’ve freaked, jerked the steering wheel, probably crashed into another car. Possibly caused an even worse accident.”
He squeezes Peter’s shoulder. “You did nothing wrong, kiddo. And May’ll tell you the same thing when she wakes up. Because she will wake up. Your aunt’s way too badass to go out this early.”
Peter snorts out something between a laugh and a sob. Tony wants nothing more than to pull the kid into a hug, but he refrains. Waits for Peter to initiate, if he’s going to.
He does. Peter pitches forward in his chair - he would’ve fallen in Tony wasn’t as prepared to catch him as he was - and buries his face in Tony’s shoulder. Muffled by both fabric and his tears, Peter says, “You’re right. May would never let one stupid car be the end of her, anyway.”
Wrapping his arms around Peter, Tony smiles into his hair. “Your aunt’s way too powerful for a damn car, Pete.”
This gets a real laugh.
Which turns into sobbing. Harsh, shaky, broken-hearted sobbing.
So Tony holds him. In the middle of a hospital room, with the beeping of a heart monitor in the background, Tony holds him and lets him cry.
Peter stays at the compound while May is in the hospital.
May wakes up five days later and almost immediately proceeds to tell Peter exactly what Tony told him, while Tony grins at the two of them from the doorway.
When he says I told you so , Peter wordlessly flips him off, making him laugh so hard he spills drops of his coffee all over the tiled floor.
And yeah. Everything he said to the nurse that first day was true.