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“Boss, Peter Parker’s heart has stopped.”
Tony spits out his coffee. “What? Friday? Repeat?”
She’s still just as deadpan as before. “Peter Parker’s heart has stopped, as reported by his in-suit AI, Karen.”
“What the fuck?” Tony chokes, stumbling out of his seat. The chair topples over behind him, hitting the floor with a loud crack, and Tony tries to catch his breath. “Like, you’re talking directly to Karen or you’re reading diagnostics from Karen?” His mouth is dry and his hands are shaking, and he’s already heading for the door.
“Diagnostics,” Friday says. “Karen is unresponsive.”
Tony activates his earpiece and nearly trips over his own feet. “Fri, call him, push through a call to Peter, just, just—push it through, don’t wait for him to answer.”
Tony feels like his entire body is seizing up. It’s a fucking Wednesday, it’s eleven in the morning, Peter Parker’s heart is not allowed to stop. It’s not allowed to stop ever, but especially not right now, on a fucking Wednesday at eleven in the morning. There’s no reason for it, so it can’t be happening, it just can’t.
He races down the stairs and listens to Friday trying to push the call through. He hears the click, and Tony listens hard once it’s connected, but it’s only silence and static, which doesn’t seem right.
“Disconnect,” Tony says, his voice breaking, and he’s still going down and down and down, towards the workshop.
He’s panicking. He’s panicking.
He needs to stop, but easier said than done, as always, especially when it comes to the kid. He’s always so goddamn worried about Peter, and now he gets a goddamn notification that his heart stopped? No, can’t be, not allowed, one hundred percent out of the question.
He doesn’t entertain the idea or the future it presents, drifting out of the fog like a phantom. He doesn’t think about calling May or what she would say if he did. The way she would scream. He tries to stave off the cold sweats and the tightness in his chest.
He’s not dead he’s not dead he’s not dead
“Fri, what was his last known location? Because that’s where I’m going.”
“Home, boss,” Friday says. “I’ll set the trajectory into your chosen suit.”
Tony cuts his eyes to the side as he heads for the next stairwell. “Home?”
“Yes. The Parker apartment.”
That...that’s suspicious, and it almost worries him more. Why is Peter at home and not at school? Why wasn’t Tony made aware if he was staying home? Did someone break in? Is the building on fire? Is he killing himself with carbon monoxide somehow? Why the fuck is he in the suit?
“Goddamnit,” Tony breathes, feeling lightheaded.
~
He’s sure the Iron Man sightings are either thrilling people or making them question what the hell is going on, but Tony doesn’t really think about that, and he can deal with the repercussions later. He just makes sure he pushes the suit to the limit and gets the fuck over to the apartment, not looking at the flatline that’s plastered to his heads up display with Peter’s face next to it.
Heart stopped heart stopped heart stopped
He’s so young he’s too young this can’t happen Tony was supposed to protect him he was supposed to protect him
He lands outside and leaves the suit there like a warning outside, and he’s already halfway up the stairs before he considers he might have needed it, that there could be someone in there, someone that did something to Peter—
—but if someone did something to Peter it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t fucking matter—
—if he’s dead—
—if he’s dead—
Tony’s horror overwhelms him, and he breaks the apartment door down with two blows.
He stumbles inside, glancing around. The curtains are pulled back, the sun streaming in, and nothing looks out of the ordinary. There’s still a cereal bowl on the dining room table, milk pooling in the bottom. A plate of half eaten...cookies?
“Peter?” Tony yells, squeezing his hands into fists, and maybe he should have brought the suit, maybe somebody is here, and if he has to run across his kid’s dead body he can’t—he cannot—
“Peter?” Tony yells again, louder this time, heading into the kid’s hallway. His voice is going hoarse, dread creeping in. “Peter, where are you? Where are you?”
Is he talking to emptiness? A dead body? A broken future? Another funeral?
Peter’s door is open a crack, thankfully, or Tony would have broken it, too.
It slams against the wall as Tony busts inside, and Peter jumps, yelling, collapsing in on himself beside his bed. Tony’s brows furrow.
“What? No! What? Huh!” Peter exclaims, hands at the ready for fighting before everything registers for him. But then it does register, his brows furrowing too. “Tony?”
Tony takes it all in. Peter’s suit is on the bed, completely open and connected to his computer. Peter is in his pajamas, and his voice is nasally. Is he fucking sick?
Tony’s brain isn’t working right, and he means to ask if he’s sick, why he didn’t call, what the hell he’s doing to the suit. Instead, he points at him. “I’m glad you’re not dead, but also, I hate you.”
Peter pouts. “You don’t hate—dead?”
“Somehow, with whatever the hell you’re doing there, you connected and disconnected your fucking heart monitor, and Karen sent diagnostics to Friday which led to Friday informing me that your heart had stopped.”
Peter stares. Sniffs. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Tony says, chin held high. “Big…oh.”
Peter grits his teeth. Still staring. Lots of guilt. “Um. Sorry about that, that’s…that’s bad, that’s not good.”
Tony stares back. Facade crumbling. “Why are you sick?”
“I don’t know,” Peter says, petulantly. “It shouldn’t happen, I don’t want it to happen. It’s—it’s rare, and it just started this morning, and I’m hoping it goes away like it normally does nowadays because I don’t like it.”
“Nobody likes being sick,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes find the suit again, and Peter laughs stupidly.
“I’m just, like, messing around,” Peter says. “You know, like, doing a couple upgrades, trying out webshooter combos—”
“Uh huh, uh huh, maybe you should sharpen up your sixth sense because I got in here without alerting you, which is also not normal,” Tony says. He clicks his tongue. “Is that because—”
“It’s because I’m sick—”
They both sigh.
Tony is softening. “Fine,” he says. He lets out a breath, one he’s been holding since the initial reveal of this insanity. “Fine.”
Peter raises his eyebrows, recognition flashing across his flushed face. “Aw, Tony, you were worried! You flew all the way over here because you were worried! About me!”
Tony scoffs. “Yeah, I didn’t want your Aunt to come home to your newly dead body, because whether or not I was involved at all, it’d still be my fault.” He glances towards the window. “I better think about getting the suit in here, or at least activating stealth mode so nobody gets any ideas.”
Peter grins at him.
“Stop,”’ Tony says, trying not to smile.
“I’m just glad I mean so much to you,” Peter says, smiling softly now, wistfully. “You know, that’s...that’s an accomplishment. I feel like I need to write this down. On like, my calendar, or in my diary.”
“Uh huh,” Tony says, rolling his eyes, ignoring the diary comment. “C’mon, short stuff, let’s go make some soup and then I’ll help you destroy your suit from the inside out in a way that wouldn’t send me an alert saying you’re dead.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” Peter says, trailing after him. “That would be good.”
Tony pats him on the back, deflating a little bit when he really takes in the fact that Peter is walking around and talking, albeit through a spidery-head cold.
Not dead. Not dead. Thank God.
“Barring what May’s got in stock,” Tony says, leading him back into the living room and towards the kitchen. “Chicken or butternut squash?”