Work Text:
Mr. Stark is talking and Peter really should focus on keeping the camera stable, but his attention span is shorter than ever due to A) the absolutely crazy weekend he has had and B) the fact that he is sitting in the car with fricking Tony Stark.
Honestly, Peter is emotionally and physically wiped out. The private planes, the flights, the new suit, the fight, the unsettling uncertainty (and loneliness) afterwards, Mr. Stark returning bruised and battered and carrying a darkness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. All of that would be enough to send any teenager reeling from exhaustion and shock, but add it to the fact that he’s currently in a car with Tony Stark, a person he’s admired since he was a little kid, and that’s enough reason for him to be wired up with boundless nervous energy despite his weary body and mind.
“…what an incredible job your nephew…”
Mr. Stark’s words spark a warm feeling in his chest, one that he would like to bask in for a moment (an incredible job!), but, as always, something happens before he can do that.
There’s a tingle on the back of his neck and his gaze is magnetically drawn to the wind shield.
At first glance, there’s nothing unusual there.
But the tingle morphs into a warning buzz, so he squints his eyes (the stark contrast between the bright headlights and the dark evening really throws his eyesight off) and looks again.
Mr. Stark is still looking at the camera, when multiple things happen in quick succession.
One, Peter can see a van approaching with a frighteningly rapid velocity down the street.
Two, the swerving, speeding van only narrowly avoids slamming into the car turning left before them.
Three, the van continues straight towards them.
Four, Happy shouts and tries to swerve to the left to avoid it.
Five, the van hits the right side of their car.
In the seconds before the collision, acting purely on instinct, Peter grabs Mr. Stark’s arm, throws him to the left side of the car and then dives after him. His hands stick reflexively onto the door frame, keeping them both in place.
Then –
discordant cacophony of breaks screeching bending breaking metal wrenching structures shattering glass bodies thumping thudding around the car frame splintering pain
– all whirling and blending together as the world tumbles around him.
He must have blacked out for a bit, because the next thing he knows, the movement has stopped, the door has become the floor, and he can smell gasoline.
He knows that in the context of cars and accidents, gasoline is a huge red sign, which is why he isn’t surprised that his spidey sense is screaming.
If only his body listened.
His back is on fire and there’s something heavy clamping down his legs, dangling his lower half awkwardly almost upside down along the seat cushion. Warm liquid, gasoline or something else, he doesn’t know, is dripping down his sides.
His head is another thing entirely. Both light and heavy. Pounding and throbbing. The liquid is there, too, dripping from the side of his head towards his temple and down his nose. His eyes can’t focus enough to make out what it is.
His hands are still stuck on the door frame, Mr. Stark – unconscious, but without any noticeable injuries (besides the black eye and bruises that were already there) – safe under him.
He can’t see Happy.
He can smell the tangy blood beneath the gasoline.
The reality of the situation settles on his shoulders, heavy and concrete.
He needs to get them away from here.
Grim determination sinking into his bones, he starts to get up, inch by inch.
Shifting his weight to his hands is positively awful, his back flaring up painfully as his shoulders bunch together and his spine arcs, his forearms trembling uncontrollably and almost giving under him.
Ignoring all this, he grits his teeth and sets his jaw against the anguished cries that threaten to escape from his mouth.
Slowly, slowly he yanks his calves out from where they had been stuck under the crumbled caved-in left-side (now up-side) door, and drops heavily onto his hands and knees. For a while all he can do is suck in desperate gasps. Straightening his back sends bolts of agony throughout his body, and when he tries to rise up, he finds that there’s something wrong with his legs. They feel funny, like his bones were made of air or rubber. He can’t feel any pain there, but especially his right leg is constantly folding under his weight.
He ends up using his hands to keep it upright, and finally he’s standing (or crouching the best he can in the cramped space).
His head is all fuzzy, his vision coming and going, but he knows that he has to get them out.
Get Mr. Stark and Mr. Happy out.
How?
The question stops Peter in his tracks and he contemplates the question embarrassingly long, his thoughts tangling together, thick and slow. Out, out, out, out, out. Circle upon circle. Like an arch reactor. But he’s no Iron Man. He’s Spider-Man. And he needs to get out of here.
I need to get out.
I need to get us out.
How do I get us out?
His bleary eyes drop to the door under Mr. Stark.
Door. Doors are how we get out.
I need to open the door.
But he can’t open the door while it’s against the ground.
He needs to get it off the ground.
He moves to stare at the bottom of the car, now rising behind him like a wall.
He hobbles around and puts his hands against the floor of the car. Steels himself. Summons the last dregs of his strength. Braces his legs against the ground as well as he can. And shoves.
For once, Parker LuckTM doesn’t strike and the car actually tips over and drops back on its’ wheels.
The resulting bounce almost takes his fading consciousness with it.
Groaning, he forces himself up again before it actually does, the gasoline still burning his nose.
Mr. Stark has slumped from the window onto the seat next to him.
Peter reaches over him to push the door open.
It’s stuck.
Of course.
Parker LuckTM isn’t that easily trumped.
He lets one ragged, sobbing breath escape before he locks his jaw again and punches the door with all his frustration.
The door flies off its hinges, unbalancing Peter from his seat.
He almost tumbles down to the ground, only barely managing to catch himself on the door frame.
Sweet, blessed evening air wafts over his face.
He’s very tempted to just fall out and lie down on the black concrete road.
But he has something he has to do.
Get them out.
He starts with Mr. Stark.
The door is already open so he clambers out, willing his legs to bear his weight. He puts his hands under Mr. Stark’s armpits and drags him out as carefully as he can. The extra weight nearly crumbles him, but he perseveres, drawing from some deeply buried fountain of strength inside him.
He drags him, stumbling and falling over and rising up again, as far as he can (which not that far at all, but it will have to do), then returns for Mr. Happy.
The driver’s side door opens without a hitch. He starts pulling Mr. Happy out as well, when something yanks him back. Confused, he pulls again. Ah. Mr. Happy still has his seat belt on. He yanks at it and it comes off easily.
Peter can hardly see anymore, darkness swallowing most of his vision, but he tries to head back to same spot he left Mr. Stark in. Stumbling, falling, wobbling back up again. Rinse and repeat.
A blink, a second, ten, an hour, Peter doesn’t know how much time it takes to drag Mr. Happy to Mr. Stark.
He just knows that sometime later, he’s swaying next to Mr. Stark and Mr. Happy’s lifeless bodies.
His right leg gives out.
He collapses just as the car ignites in a powerful blast.
He’s unconscious before he hits the ground.
Coming back to consciousness feels too much like one of his nightmares. Like the ones featuring a military envoy and the bright, unforgiving Afghan sun, laughter swapping with shouted commands and screams of pain.
Tony groans as his ribs and back flare up.
At least his chest seems to be void of shrapnel this time around, although there is something pressing down on him, pinning him down.
He shifts a little, trying to gauge the weight of the thing, whether he could shrug it off or if he needs his suit. It’s relatively light and pliable, so not rubble. It covers almost all of him, some weird tufts coming up to brush his neck—
Oh wait.
It’s someone, not something.
Shit.
“FRI—“, his voice breaks.
He coughs, rattling his bruised ribs, and tries again.
“FRIDAY, alert Helen Cho. Now.”
“Alerting Dr. Cho,” the calm familiar voice echoes up from his wristwatch.
“And activate the gauntlet.”
He can feel the plating forming around his arm as an answer.
As gently as he can, Tony pushes the other person off. Aside from a small grunt, there’s no other sign of life from them. Worrying, but there's nothing he can do about it before he can assess the situation.
Now that he can move again, he lets the Mark 46 assemble around him fully.
Then he gets up, ribs and back aching, and starts to analyse the scene in front of him.
There’s a flaming wreckage of a car a safe distance away from them, and another wreckage even further away.
On his left his side is Happy, blood running from his forehead.
“FRIDAY, scan!” He’ll deny the concern that bleeds into his voice to his dying day.
The results plop on his screen immediately. Happy only has a concussion and some bruising from the seatbelt.
On his right, though…
On his right lies Peter Parker.
In addition to the black eye he got from the Spangles, he now has a severe concussion, lacerations and burns on his back, strained arm muscles, a hairline fracture on his left leg and a proper break on his right one. Not to mention the extensive bruising and burns all over his body.
In a flash, the memories from the crash come back to him.
The video.
Peter glancing to the front.
Happy shouting.
The scream of the breaks.
Hands grabbing, throwing him away from the collision point.
A small body shielding him.
He saved me.
A wave of guilty gratitude rises up in his chest, chokes him.
At what cost?
He stares at the blood stains on the kid's clothes, his usually jittery, energetic limbs frighteningly still and lifeless on the ground. He stares at the kid’s legs, the sickening bump of a bone out of place. He stares at the kid’s face, slack and streaked in blood as well.
The wreckage fire crackles loudly, and his gaze whips around to stare at it.
Then at Happy, out cold on the ground, then at Peter, then at the fire again.
He saved us both.
The thoughts wash over him like a cold waterfall, crushingly clear.
He got us out on goddamn broken legs.
Without him we’d be toast.
As the first red lights appear in the distance, Tony makes a solemn vow to himself.
I won’t let him get hurt a second time.
Not on my watch.
I’ll be better.
I’ll be better, so he doesn’t have to be.