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Peter groaned and snoozed his alarm clock for the third time, the noise was starting to be grating on his sensitive ears. He rolled over gingerly, wincing, and glared at the bottom of the top bunk. This is what he gets for lying. He knew that Parker luck already sucked and he just had to exacerbate it by lying and bringing karma down on himself.
It all really started when May went out of town for a friend’s wedding in Massachusetts on Thursday. Peter had sworn up and down that he could take care of himself until she got home next Monday, he swears he can May, he won’t burn down the kitchen, they have stuff to make sandwiches. And, yes May, he would call Mr. Stark if he needed to and no, May he promised not to stay out too late as Spider-Man.
Lies. So many lies.
He went out as Spider-Man within an hour of May leaving the apartment and was out until three in the morning when he was stabbed by a mugger. To be fair, it was on purpose that he was stabbed, he totally took the knife for the guy who was so frozen in fear he had been unable to dodge but it still hurt like a bitch. The good news: it had caught him in the fleshy part of his left side, right above his hip. The bad news: he had no idea what to do with a stab wound beyond leaving the knife in place.
Swinging home after had been a huge pain in the ass. His movements kept pulling on his side (knife still in place and held still by a thick padding of his webs) and Karen kept begging him to call Mr. Stark. Which, okay, yeah he would have totally done that if it had been before his curfew but now? May and Mr. Stark would both have his head. Better to just handle it himself. Good thing he had Ned reprogram the modified Baby Monitor protocol Mr. Stark had downloaded into his suit.
Peter was sweating and panting by the time he fell through his window, taking a moment to rest on his back on the cool wood floors. It he didn’t handle this soon he would have to call Mr. Stark. With a pitiful whine, he propped himself up against the wall and maneuvered his way to standing, still leaning heavily against his wall as he made his way toward the bathroom.
He and May had been stockpiling medical supplies to make their own mega first aid kit for the last couple months. May still preferred he got to the MedBay at the tower to get treated but he healed so fast it was sometimes easier to just treat his more minor injuries at home. Peter stumbled into the bathroom and listed into the counter. His reflection was pale and bordering green in the mirror and he looked away, right hand supporting his ribs as he dug through their cabinets to pull out the supplies he would need.
Once he thought he had everything he needed, he peeled his webs from around the knife and shimmied out of the spider suit, being careful not to jostle the knife. Gripping the hilt in one hand and one of the clean dish rags in the other he took a fortifying breath and smoothly yanked the knife from his side, grunting as he applied pressure. Peter dropped the knife in the sink and dizzily leaned his face into the cool Formica of the counter, taking steady breaths to make the world stop spinning.
“You got this Spider-Man,” he told himself as he sat up slowly. “You’re almost there,” he whispered, grabbing his towel from the rack and draping it over his lap. “Just… gotta flush it,” he said a little breathlessly, cracking open the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and, before he could talk himself out of it, dumping it onto his wound, gagging at the feeling of it stinging and bubbling. He used some clean gauze to wipe away the excess before repeating the procedure and then clamping more gauze over the top to hold pressure.
“Okay,” he stuttered out. “You get three minutes, Pete. Three and then you have to look at it.” He rested his head back on the counter and spent the next few minutes breathing as deeply as he dared through his nose and exhaling out his mouth. It took longer than three minutes but, eventually, he felt ready to continue.
“Oh damn,” Peter groaned, looking at the jagged slice in his side. He had thought that the cut had been clean but apparently it wasn’t and, to his surprise, it was still sluggishly leaking blood. Normally his healing would have at least stopped the bleeding by now. Did it need stitches? It probably needed stitches right? Or staples? Didn’t people get staples instead of stitches sometimes? He gagged at the thought of stapling his side, causing his abdomen to burn.
So stitches then. May didn’t have stitching material in their first aid kit but they did have a sewing kit. Same thing right? He pulled down the kit and shakily threaded the needle with black thread. “Come on Parker,” he told himself firmly. “You’ve seen this tons of times, just do it.”
And, with one more steadying breath, Peter had taken a bite of skin with the needle and began the arduous task of stitching his side back together.
And now here he was, lying on his bottom bunk at eight-forty five in the morning on Sunday, side burning dangerously, energy depleted and no willpower to get out of bed and get ready. Happy was supposed to be by in fifteen minutes to pick him up and take him to the tower to work with Mr. Stark for the day and there was no way Peter would be anywhere close to being ready to go. He pulled his blankets tighter around him and placed his hand over his eyes.
Wait, why did he feel so hot? He flipped his hand over and rested it on his forehead. Yep, warm and, maybe he was crazy, but it felt like it was getting warmer. With a feeling of dread, Peter struggled to sit up and pulled the hem of his shit up, clasping it between his teeth to free both hands to peel to bandages of his abdomen. He only got the corner off and peaked in before he gagged and dove for his trash can, dry heaving in it.
Okay, so he screwed up. He screwed up so bad, shit.
Breathing through the nausea, he grabbed his phone and shakily unlocked it, pulling up Mr. Stark’s contact info and pressing the ‘call’ button before he could change his mind.
“Underoos! What’s up, aren’t you on your way over?” Mr. Stark answered jovially, the soft strumming of a hard rock guitar solo muted in the background.
“I think I fucked up,” Peter choked out, eyes burning a little from unshed tears from the pain of heaving.
“FRI get me a suit,” Mr. Stark said, slight panic an undercurrent to his words. “Pete you need to tell me where you are buddy.”
“I’m home,” Peter said softly, a slight hitch in his voice and shame burning in his gut.
“You’re home,” Mr. Stark said dubiously. “Okay what happened?”
“I may have been stabbed a little,” Peter admitted.
“Okay,” Mr. Stark sounded like he was trying too hard to be calm over the phone. “I need you to put pressure on it. I’ll be there in just a few minutes and I can alert the MedBay that we’re coming.”
“Uh,” Peter muttered. “It’s not bleeding anymore.”
Mr. Stark was silent for a beat. “Explain.”
“I uh-,” Peter said sheepishly, “I may have been stabbed on Friday morning. Just a little.”
There was a deep sigh from Mr. Stark. “That’s… not ideal. Okay kiddo, I’m landing on the roof and I’ll be down in a second. Don’t move until I get there.” And with that his mentor hung up the phone.
Great. There goes keeping this a secret from Aunt May, she was never going to trust him home alone again. Peter lay anemically on his bed, tangled in his sweaty blankets and uncaring about his general state of being. He was probably going to be embarrassed Mr. Stark saw him like this later but, right now, he really didn’t care. The lock on the living room door clicked and he heard it open and close, hurried footsteps clicking across the floor before his door creaked open.
“You look like shit,” Mr. Stark bluntly told him, concern and disapproval warring on his face.
“Thanks,” Peter responded. He probably did look like shit.
“I would say ‘let’s see it’ but Happy just pulled up outside. Think you can manage getting downstairs with some help or do you need to be carried.”
“Please don’t carry me,” Peter whined, laboriously pulling himself into a sitting position, right arm slung across his abdomen to support it. It took some doing on both their parts, but Mr. Stark got Peter on his feet with an arm around his shoulders as support. The ride to the tower was quiet beyond Mr. Stark grumbling about Peter’s high fever and probable infection. Happy pulled them into the private garage under the tower and Dr. Banner met them by the elevator.
“Hi Peter,” he greeted warmly, a concerned look on his face. “Tony said you got yourself into a bit of trouble?”
“Kid got himself stabbed. On Friday.” Mr. Stark said, ushering them both into the elevator which shot off to top floors without any of them pressing a button. Bruce just nodded but didn’t say anything else. Peter rested against the cool wall and closed his eyes for the duration of the ride. He felt awful.
Once the doors trundled open, Dr. Banner herded them down the hall and had Peter situated, shirtless on a bed in short order. “Alright,” he said, snapping on a pair of blue nitrile gloves, “I’m going to remove the bandage now.” Peter turned his face away and focused on the sink in the corner as Bruce carefully picked off the tape and peeled the bandage away from his skin.
“Jesus Peter,” Mr. Stark said, a horrified lilt to his voice and Peter gulped. He knew that they were seeing what he saw earlier: inflamed and swollen skin with pale green pus and a blood-tinged fluid leaking from around the poorly done sutures. “Did you even clean this before you went Frankenstein on it?”
“Of course,” Peter said indignant. “I flushed it with hydrogen peroxide twice.”
Tony visibly face-palmed and Bruce shook his head.
“What?” Peter asked.
“The bubbles in hydrogen peroxide can actually push germs and debris deeper into an injury,” Dr. Banner explained patiently, moving over to the cabinets and pulling out individually wrapped instruments which he placed on a mayo stand. “That coupled with the fact that you used a braided string means you trapped a lot of bacteria which led to the infection you currently have.”
“Oh,” Peter breathed out. Tony rolled his eyes.
“‘Oh’ he says,” Mr. Stark griped. “This is why we leave the medical care to the professionals kid.”
“I thought I could handle it,” Peter grumbled out, a blush covering the bridge of his nose.
“But you don’t have to,” Bruce told him, rolling the mayo stand next to Peter’s bed. “That’s what we are here for.” He picked up a tourniquet and deftly tied it around Peter’s bicep. “Now I’m going to place an IV catheter since we haven’t finished developing an oral pain relief for you yet and I’m going to give you enough of your tier two drugs with sedative that you should just sleep through the irrigation and debridement and, when you wake up, we can talk about the recovery process.” His tone brokered no argument, so Peter just nodded and did his best not to flinch when Bruce slipped the needle into his arm and pulled out the stylet.
“While this should be punishment enough,” Mr. Stark said, typing something on his phone, “Your Aunt wants me to inform you that you’re grounded for the next two weeks.”
“You told May?” Peter groaned. “Snitches get stitches Mr. Stark.”
“I’d rather have stitches than whatever your aunt would do to me if she found out I kept this from her,” Tony said seriously, reaching a hand out to brush Peter’s bangs from his face as Dr. Banner flushed the catheter and then slowly injected his pain meds. They worked fast and Peter felt his eye lids growing heavy. “Happy trails kiddo,” Mr. Stark said, thumb running over Peter’s cheek bone, warming Peter to the core and allowing him to fully relax as he fell asleep.