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Tony lands heavy on the dock, the wood splintering hard under the metal suit. He’s having trouble breathing, his nose is bleeding, he most definitely has more than the recommended amount of broken ribs. But none of that fucking matters. The sky is clear, the assholes are down, but there’s one thing missing.
He looks over his shoulder when Rhodey lands too. His suit is dented in a few places but other than that he looks alright. His face mask flips up and Tony lets his mask retract.
“Where’s Peter?” Tony asks, his voice rough with the amount of yelling he’s been doing. Fuck these stupid assholes. They were supposed to go mini-golfing today. The kid had been looking forward to it for weeks.
Rhodey looks around, breathing hard through his mouth. “I thought you knew.”
Alarm bells. Those specific alarms that ping in Tony’s head whenever Peter’s in danger. They’ve been going off since this shitshow started, but now they’re louder, echoing. Panic has been upgraded to level eight.
“Shit,” Tony breathes, wincing when the setting sun sends a sharp beam of light off the river. “They’re all down right? And their goddamn—gear?”
“Yeah, I took down the last one,” Rhodey says.
“Fri, can you back that up?” Tony asks.
“They’re all down, Boss.”
“Where’s Peter?” Tony asks, his heart rate skyrocketing. Alarms are louder, screeching. Panic at level ten. “Kid?” he yells, turning around in a circle. “Where the hell are you?”
“He was just here,” Rhodey says, gesturing weakly. “He took out those two with the rocket launchers, dealt with those machine gun trucks—wait, where—”
“Friday, scan the area,” Tony says, swallowing hard. He storms down the dock on one side, looks off to where the police are still cutting off the area. The small sailboats are rattling in the water, which is still rocky with waves.
“There’s no trace of him, sir,” Friday says.
“That’s fucking impossible,” Tony says. “No trace, he was just—” Tony stops talking, eyes zeroing in on the end of the dock where it’s broken and splintered. The patches of grass above along the walkway that are torn up, dirt everywhere. The tire tracks. Web remnants. “Trucks, trucks—where are their fucking trucks?”
Rhodey sucks in a breath. “Jesus, that’s what I was just—I don’t see them, where the hell did they go?”
Tony looks around, starting to get frantic. He feels lightheaded. The guys that were in the trucks are webbed to a few nearby lampposts, their rocket launchers and other gear abandoned below them. But the trucks. They were more like goddamn tanks on wheels, something some overcompensating dickwad would use to terrorize the city. Tony and Rhodey had been so fucking busy with the flying ones, the goddamn jet packs—he hadn’t been paying proper attention to Peter, what was happening to Peter, where the fuck Peter got off to—
“I don’t see them around,” Rhodey says. “I don’t see them.”
“Shit,” Tony says, looking at the dock. “God, could—could they—Friday, scan the water for signs of Spider-Man.”
The nanos recreate his helmet, and he watches his screens anxiously. He almost jumps the fuck in before she finishes scanning, but then Peter’s signature pops up.
“The vehicles are in the water, and it seems Mr. Parker is underneath them.”
Tony almost pukes.
“He’s fucking stuck under there,” he breathes. “Under both trucks, shit, he’s—he might be unconscious—” He realizes he’s talking too much, wasting precious time, and he dives into the water.
He can see the trucks now, one on top of the other, but no Peter yet. Tony feels like a goddamn idiot for not realizing what was happening. God knows how goddamn long it’s been. He knows the kid is strong, stronger than him, so this shit must be way too heavy to get out from underneath all on his own.
It’s been too long, he’s drowning, he’s dying, you’re letting him die—
“Friday, scan it, where is he?” Tony asks, swimming around, up towards the top of the truck pile. But he doesn’t have to wait long—he sees Peter, struggling, trapped and without his mask.
“Goddamnit,” Tony breathes, moving in closer. “Fuck, fuck—”
He hears a noise behind him and sees that Rhodey is under the water now too. Tony turns back around and dives down to where Peter is, Rhodey moving to take a position on the other side of the bottom truck. The whole damn front is crushing the kid’s chest, the other one wedging it in place. Peter is pushing hard, but the trucks are barely moving, if they’re moving at all. Not enough to free him.
Tony’s nearly drowned before, and he wouldn’t wish it on anybody, especially Peter. He wants to reassure him, wants to calm him, but he knows they need to work at this and work at it fast. He knows the Iron Man mask is cold and unfeeling, but he hopes some part of Peter is still soothed by it. He reaches him, gets as close as he can. Peter is shaking, struggling hard, and there are bubbles everywhere. He’s losing air.
Tony takes him by the shoulder, firmly, and Peter stops moving for a moment, squinting, blinking. He looks at him, looks at Rhodey, looks at Tony again. He nods, once, twice, seemingly trying to get his head about him, trying to quell the panic. He grabs Tony’s metal hand for a moment, nodding again.
God, this kid Tony thinks, his heart lurching. He’s stronger than I’ll ever be.
Tony looks up at Rhodey, nods, and then all three of them start pushing. It is heavy, and Tony grits his teeth, wincing. “Friday—God, help me—put my back into it—”
He gets an extra repulsor boost for his trouble and the trucks budge. They push harder, Tony’s foot thrusters working on overdrive. He tries not to look at Peter, how much he’s straining, the way he shakes when water gets into his throat.
He doesn’t have much time, fuck, do it, do it, get him out—
They finally push enough to create a small space between the grille of the truck and Peter’s body, and Tony holds on tight, afraid of losing it, afraid of dropping it back down on him again. His back thrusters are going, everything is going, everything he has.
“Grab him, Tones,” Rhodey’s voice says in his ears. “Grab him, yank him out.”
Peter is already trying to move. Tony holds onto the truck with one hand and grabs Peter’s shoulder with the other, pulling on him as hard as he can as Peter pushes out too. As soon as his feet clear, they let the truck slam back down. Both vehicles shift and moan like the Titanic sinking, but Tony doesn’t fucking care about that anymore. He swims over to where Peter is and wraps his arms around his waist, surging up towards the surface.
They both burst up out of the water and Peter sucks in a big breath, coughing and clinging to Tony’s shoulders as they fly over to the dock.
“C’mon kid,” Tony says, hating the robotic sound of his voice in a moment like this. He’s gotta get out of the damn suit. They land and Peter collapses despite Tony’s hold, landing on his knees, heaving up water, his whole body convulsing.
“What the fuck was in those things?” Rhodey’s voice asks, landing on the dock in front of them. “Cement? Was it the machine guns? I’ve seen the kid lift subway trains.”
Tony doesn’t answer, only lets the suit scatter back into the housing unit before he drops down alongside Peter. He rubs his back, staying close. “Just get it out,” he says. “Get it all out, try and breathe, bud. Try and relax.” Tony quickly looks up, makes eye contact with Rhodey. “Make sure nobody, and I mean not one single fucking squirrel, comes over here while Peter’s mask is off.”
“Got it,” Rhodey says, and quickly flies away.
Peter keeps coughing, dragging in ragged, painful-sounding breaths. Tony grips the back of his neck, trying to twist around so he can see his face. He hopes nothing is broken, hopes there's no damage from being pinned like that. He has Friday do a quick scan, and it comes up clear, mostly. A few broken ribs, just like Tony's own. Some definite bruising. But otherwise, it's just the water he's hacking up that's causing problems.
“You’re okay, kid,” Tony says, soft as he can. “You’re okay.”
“Oh my—God,” Peter gasps. He falls all the way down, nearly faceplanting into the dock, and Tony holds onto his arm, trying to keep him steady. “I had it, I—I totally had it, Mr. Stark,” he says, in a renewed bout of coughing. “I fell in with—with the first truck, but I had it, I was—pushing it off, but then the second—the second truck fell and—God, I didn’t have it anymore.”
“It’s alright, Spidey,” Tony says, sitting down next to him. “We don’t gotta have it every single time, as long as we’ve got backup, yeah?”
“Ugh,” Peter groans, the coughing getting a little less violent. Tony tugs him closer and Peter crashes into his chest, reaching over and bracing his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he says. “Backup. Iron Man and War Machine. My backup.”
“Spider-Man’s got a posse,” Tony says, ruffling the kid’s wet hair. “Next time, I just need you to flail your arms and scream as loud as you can—Mr. Stark, I’m going into the water!—okay? Got it? Make things easier.”
Peter laughs, coughs, makes absolutely no move to sit up. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
The alarm bells in Tony’s head are slowly going silent, the panic levels decreasing, and he holds Peter close, squeezing his shoulder. The idea of him hurt is fucking abhorrent. The idea of him dead is—impossible. Not allowed. “You did an incredible job, bud,” Tony says. “You took out, like, eight of them while Rhodey and I were struggling with three.”
“Used some of the moves you taught me the other day,” Peter breathes. “Used your scorpion move. A lot more effective than I….anticipated.”
“Told you,” Tony says, smiling to himself. He sighs, more relief than anything else, some anticipation about getting Peter out of here without people seeing him. And the cleanup is always a pain in the ass. “You sure you’re alright?” he asks, searching for the reassurance he needs.
Peter pulls back a little bit, looking at him. He still looks exhausted but he nods, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a small smile. “Yeah,” he says. “Peachy.”
Tony snorts, shaking his head. “You think you’re ready to head back to the compound? Watch the highlights on the news?”
“I will be requiring hot chocolate,” Peter says, wiping his eyes. “And a shock blanket.”
“Can do,” Tony says, already planning his phone call to May. “You know I’ve got those fuzzy blankets on standby.” He looks around, over towards where Rhodey is standing with the cops, who are putting up partitions in front of a disappointed crowd. “Now...we just gotta find your mask. Or a paper bag we can put over your head.”
“I need eye holes,” Peter says, as Tony helps him to his feet.
“Yes,” Tony says. “That’ll make it okay and not at all dumb.”
This kid is gonna give me a heart attack one day.