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Peter comes back to awareness slowly. His first thought as he opens his eyes to see the compound medbay yet again is that it’s a shame he woke up at all. He was having a good dream, for once; he was Peter Pan and Tony was Captain Hook - but more like the funny one from the Disney version - while Gerald kept trying to eat parts of Tony’s ship and Happy ran around chasing after him.
Truly, it didn’t get much better.
However, his disappointment abates at the second thought– for the first time in three days, he’s been left alone.
“FRIDAY?“ he croaks out, coughing from the dryness in his throat.
“Yes, Peter?”
“Where - cough - is everyone?”
“Drs. Cho and Banner are presently relaxing in the library, Mrs. Stark-Potts and Little Miss are resting in their quarters, Mrs. Parker and Mr. Hogan went off-site approximately 2 hours ago, and Boss is in the team’s communal kitchen making lasagna.”
At the word lasagna Peter’s stomach grumbles, and all at once he realizes what woke him up– he’s famished. He checks the wall-clock - 10:36 PM. Having slept nearly all day, he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast over thirteen hours ago. Oh yeah, that’ll do it.
Peter sits up slowly, his shoulder wound pulling at the movement. He lifts his covers to take a look at the other wounds and self-assess. Of course there was the stab wound to the back of his shoulder, but that had been fairly superficial compared to the others, so he doesn’t bother even addressing it.
His left flank is still swathed in bandages, a result of the surgery to remove his spleen after the bullet’s impact had exploded it into smithereens (not Dr. Cho’s exact phrasing, but that was the gist Peter got). He carefully uses two fingers to press steadily harder on the dressing, wincing when a dull pain appears. But it took some pressure, which means it must be healing okay, Peter knows from experience.
He then moves onto the one that, despite not being nearly as dramatic as the gunshot wound, had in fact nearly killed him– the gaping injury in his thigh, a result of a vicious knife slice. A few millimeters more and it would have nicked his femoral artery, which would have undoubtedly meant sayonara for Peter Parker.
Unlike his flank the thigh only has one large bandage taped over the stitches– 84 of them, according to Dr. Cho. His excited response (“A new record!”) had not gone over well with May or Tony, to say the least. As with the bullet wound, he fingers the bandage, pressing down.
“Ouch,” he whines when almost immediately a sharp pain emanates. “Okay, yeah– that one still needs some time.”
He looks up at the ceiling– a habit, even if FRIDAY is always listening. “You said Tony’s in the kitchen making lasagna?”
“Yes, Peter. Would you like me to inform him you are awake?”
Peter thinks for a moment. On one hand, Tony is right where Peter needs to be– he could just ask FRIDAY to have the man bring him some food. In fact, Peter thinks, Tony is almost definitely making that lasagna for Peter already.
On the other, Peter has been going stir-crazy the past few days, not having been cleared to so much as get out of bed yet, despite his injuries improving. And honestly, he really needs to get out of this bed.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll go find him myself. I’m going to unhook myself from these machines, can you keep them from going off please?”
“Peter, I must remind you that Dr. Cho has not authorized you to leave your bed unassisted.”
Peter sighs. “C’mon FRIDAY, I just want to stretch my legs a bit. Plus I’m heading straight for Tony.”
There’s a pause. “I have no orders to alert the others if you leave your bed.”
“So you’ll handle the machines?”
“Yes.”
Peter smiles, immediately starting to pull out lines and unhook clips.
Carefully, he swings his legs off the side of the bed. There’s a small set of drawers next to it and Peter goes through them until he finds the soft, plain cotton pants and shirt set he knows is always kept there. He gingerly puts them on before standing up.
Waking up when his body is still working to repair itself is always like pulling himself out of a vat of molasses, and he feels a little woozy on his feet, leaning back a bit on the side of the bed.
“Peter?”
He shakes his head and stands up straighter, ignoring the sharp pangs of protest from his injured thigh. “I’m good, FRI.”
It becomes clear after only a few steps that there might have been a good reason Dr. Cho hadn’t give Peter clearance to leave his bed yet. His chest wound pulses a dull pain with every breath– manageable, if annoying. However, every time he puts any pressure on his right side, the thigh wound lights up as if it’s being sliced open all over again, causing Peter to wince every time.
By the time he’s out of the medbay and in the corridor, he’s coated in sweat, hand on a wall for balance.
Peter knows he’s taking a risk of popping the stitches and causing even more damage to his leg by doing this. Yet, he’s already out of the medbay and the communal kitchen, while two floors up, is really only a few hallways away if he takes the elevator.
“Get it together, Parker,” he grunts to himself, pushing off the wall and continuing on.
After the first hallway, Peter starts to wonder if maybe this hadn’t been his brightest idea, at least not without bringing his medicated saline IV along. The pain from his thigh is getting worse with each step, the inflamed tissue crackling with every heartbeat– a fire growing bigger by the moment.
As he rounds the first corner he sees the elevator at the end of the hall, his relief at the sight dulling the pain marginally. He just needs to get down this corridor, in the elevator then down one more hallway and it’s the first door on the left.
“Easy-peasy - gah - no problem - ow - you got this Spider-Man,” he whispers to himself between winces.
Halfway down the second hallway, his vision starts to get a little spotty and he leans hard against the wall, putting all his body pressure on his left leg in an effort to lessen the hot lava pulsing from his quivering right one.
He debates asking FRIDAY to get Tony, but he’s over halfway there now and Tony would just get way more worried than the situation warrants– after all, it’s not like Peter’s dying (not anymore, anyway).
Plus, if he shows up on his own in the kitchen there’s a good chance Tony will just assume Peter got authorized to leave his bed, whereas if he asks for help now there is precisely zero percent chance Tony won’t find out and lecture him like he’s fourteen instead of twenty-four.
Not to mention Tony would almost certainly find a way to blame himself for it, especially considering the man’s misplaced guilt over the reason Peter almost died in the first place.
No, best to just continue on and muscle through it, Peter decides.
By the time he reaches the elevator he realizes he is no longer even hungry, the earlier grumbles having been replaced by a nauseous wave crashing around in his stomach.
“Level two, FRI,” he mumbles, stumbling when the elevator starts to move. He only just catches himself against the wall– his thigh stitches pulling taut as his right quads extend.
“Fuck,” he pants, the pain radiating down his entire leg. His vision whites out for a few seconds, but somehow he’s still standing when the doors open.
Immediately he’s greeted with the aroma of roasted garlic and tomato, and even with the fogginess that has invaded his mind he can easily make out the sounds of Tony humming AC/DC as he moves pots around on the stove.
“Just one… more hallway,” Peter gasps as he starts making his way, using the last reserves of adrenaline to propel himself forward.
The ache emanating from his chest wound has gone from dull to piercing now, the injury getting badly jostled by his quick, hot breaths. The toll of the constant pain on his body serves to heighten his senses, hearing in particular on high alert. Peter is just glad Tony didn’t turn on any music while he cooked.
Between the two major injuries, the pain is almost blinding as he determinedly keeps going, thinking fondly of the stools he knows are in the kitchen– Peter could really use somewhere to sit down.
Finally, finally he turns the last corner, the kitchen entrance now only feet away. He can hear the sounds of pots clanking, Tony softly cursing.
Two more agonizing paces and he’s standing in the doorway. Tony is on the other side of the room, head deep in the large cupboard where they keep all the pots and pans, clearly looking for one in specific. Peter looks over to the row of stools against the island, relief flooding his veins.
He pushes off the doorway and takes a halting step, hands balled into fists in an effort to manage the agony coming from his thigh. Every muscle in his body is quaking from the exertion but he keeps going, Tony too distracted to notice him yet.
He’s nearly there when the disorganized mountain of pots in the cupboard Tony is looking through collapses, tens of them falling out past Tony and loudly clanging as metal crashes hard against tile.
“Shit,” Peter cries, hands going to his ears as his eyes screw shut from the cacophony.
“Pete? What’re you do–”
Peter sways, accidentally putting all his weight on his right leg. His vision goes from pitch-black to blindingly white as a large burst of pain radiates up and down his body, the wound already aggravated from all the earlier movement.
He thinks he hears Tony say something else but it sounds far away as he lists to the side, putting out a hand to catch himself and finding nothing but air.
He falls to the ground, his legs splaying out as his injured thigh makes direct impact with the floor, the pain increasing immeasurably as the stitches rip wide open. Peter screams…
“Kid!”
…and then everything goes black.
He comes to what can only be a minute or two later, a towel hastily stuffed beneath his head, upper right leg still radiating pain.
“Gah,” he moans, head lifting slightly to try to find the source.
“You with me, Pete?” Tony asks from where he’s pressing a second blood-soaked towel against Peter’s thigh. He doesn’t wait for a response as he calls out, “FRI! Where the hell are Helen and Bruce?”
FRIDAY responds but Peter isn’t listening, still trying to get his haywire senses to calm down. He groans again, teeth baring when Tony applies more pressure.
“I know it hurts Pete. But you’ve torn your stitches wide open, and I have to slow down the bleeding. Speaking of, what the hell were you thinking, getting out of bed?”
“Sorry, sorry,” is all Peter can manage to grit out, squinting up at Tony. “Sorry.”
Tony’s edges suddenly soften, the anger in his expression dying down only to be replaced with a fond look. “Okay, no apologizing from you to me for a while. I’m not ready to hear it yet, even for this dumbass decision. You may be bleeding out on my kitchen floor but you’re only hurt ‘cause you saved your teenage sister from getting kidnapped, and probably– well, a lot worse shit. So yeah– no more ‘sorry’s’, kiddo.”
All Peter really registers of Tony’s speech is that he should not have apologized, which just leads to him whispering another tortured sorry.
Tony gently chuckles at that, and Peter gives a soft smile at the sound, his eyes closing. Even in his agony having Tony here with him is like a balm, dulling the pain just enough for him to relax. The last of the earlier adrenaline is fast fading away now, replaced with a bone-deep exhaustion.
“Hey. Hey. No sleeping just yet, underoos.”
“‘M tired,” Peter mumbles.
There’s a long sigh. “FRI, what does Helen say?”
A pause. “Dr. Cho says as long as the bleeding is contained, Peter may rest. She and Dr. Banner are collecting a cart from the medbay and will be here shortly.”
The last thing Peter feels before succumbing to sleep is the back of Tony’s fingers against his temple.
“You rest now, kiddo. I gotcha.”