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Peter had learned his first winter after the spider bite that he lacked the ability to thermoregulate as well as he did before the bite. That’s not to say he couldn’t; he could still sweat to bring his temperature down and shiver to bring it up but he tended to lose or gain heat faster than he used to. He forgot his jacket one day on his walk to Stark Tower and ended up mildly hypothermic.
To his credit, Tony figured it out pretty quickly and started working on solutions: he added an A/C unit to his suit in addition to the heater, he made blankets that held in heat better and blankets that kept him cooler in the summer. He even made a special heat lamp for the short winter days and long winter nights that made Peter feel a little like the bearded dragon MJ had as a pet but kept him warmer than just about anything else.
All this to say that Peter made an extra effort to be more careful in extreme temperatures and, since the first incident the winter after the bite, he had only had heat stroke once and that was because he ended up stranded on a broken down subway in the middle of July. Every time his heater or A/C broke he made sure to go by the tower for repairs before patrolling again, he made sure to dress for the weather and not get stuck in any extreme situations.
Which is why he was so pissed off when the heater in his suit decided to completely shut down when he was in Ontario on a mission with Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes on his winter break. He had only been out in the Forrest surrounding a suspected Ten Rings base that they were sacking for less than ten minutes when the air filtering through his suit took on a noticeable frigid edge.
“Karen, status report on the suit. All systems functional?”
“Running diagnostics,” Karen’s calm voice said in his ear, his comm to Mr. Stark currently muted as the man infiltrated the base with Colonel Rhodes and Peter kept look out for any stragglers. “It looks like the heater is malfunctioning and has shut down.”
“Great,” Peter muttered, jumping up and down on his toes in an effort to keep himself warm. “Any way to get them back online?”
“Some of the heating coils need to be replaced,” Karen answered and Peter swore. Even if everything went perfect Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes were unlikely to be finished taking down the base and gathering any pertinent information for at least another half hour. Peter glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the quinjet that they had flown up in and waffled with the idea of hiking the mile back and getting on board to stay warm.
No, he couldn’t abandon his team. He shut down the thoughts of telling Mr. Stark about his broken heater just as quickly, there was no way he was going to distract his mentor when it could put him danger. Peter would just have to stick it out. At that thought a gust of wind blew through the trees and caused him to shiver. It had been a windy flight up and the gusts of wind had been pretty common while Peter was outside waiting but the heater had kept him from really feeling them.
No anymore.
That first shiver seemed to open the floodgates and Peter felt a shudder run down his spine and he started to shake in earnest. ‘Great,’ he thought, continuing to bounce on his toes while crossing his arms over his chest and rubbing his hands vigorously up and down his sides to generate friction and keep his chest warm.
The base in front of him remained silent as time passed and Peter started to pace back and forth, his calves beginning to go numb and causing him to lose the little bit of grace his abilities afforded him. “Come on Mr. Stark,” he gritted out through his chattering teeth, attempting to bounce on his toes again but falling over into the snow and soaking the front of his suit. “Great,” he muttered, hustling to stand back up and wipe as much of the moisture off as he could.
“Karen is there any update from FRIDAY?” Peter asked, giving up on moving and crouching down with his back to a tree, compacting his body into as small of a space as possible to conserve warmth.
“No update yet Peter,” Karen answered. “Do you want me to contact Mr. Stark? You core temperature has dropped below your low-range normal of 96.7 to 95.3 and is reaching dangerous levels.”
“Can you have FRIDAY add it to his logs so that he will see that first once the comm silence lifts?” Even though neither of them really liked it, the Ten Rings was known to have auditory attacks and EMPs that could fry comms and, if Peter was connected to them, completely deafen his enhanced hearing and leave him vulnerable. Once Tony and Rhodey were sure that the last devices and men had been neutralized they would connect back to Peter. If they were gone for longer than an hour, Peter had an emergency override to connect with them to make sure nothing had gone awry.
They were currently at forty-three minutes since entry and Peter was expecting an update soon.
“Also activate proximity scanners and deploy drone-y,” Peter stuttered out before clamping his jaw shut against the chattering and burying his face in his arms, moving only so drone-y could get free and fly off to perch on a nearby tree branch. At least this way Peter could curl up and keep as much heat in as possible without missing something important.
Time passed sluggishly from there, Peter’s shivers becoming a little painful before his extremities started to feel warm and Peter started to get worried – he knew the signs of hypothermia and this was not a good thing. “Time check Karen.”
“Fifty-four minutes,” she answered softly and it really was a testament to Mr. Stark’s abilities that she actually seemed to be worried about Peter. “You core temperature has dropped to 94.9 and you auxiliary temperature is 93.2.”
“Just leave it on the HUD,” Peter told her. “Prepare to connect comms at one hour exactly.”
“Comms ready,” Karen confirmed adding a timer and his vitals to the corner of his HUD. Peter closed his eyes and curled up tighter, letting out a shuddering breath as the shivers wracking his spine started to slow. The countdown timer on the corner of his HUD had just passed fifty-seven minutes when his comms clicked to life.
“We’re wrapping up here Spiderling, any action on your end?” Never had Tony’s voice sounded so amazing. “Hang on – FRIDAY? Shit. Spider-Man status now.” Tony barked into his comms, the sound of repulsers echoing through Peter’s earpiece and causing him to wince.
“I’m okay,” Peter stuttered hoarsely. “The heater in my suit stopped working.”
Peter could hear Rhodey swearing now too and a second burst of repulsers before Mr. Stark interrupted. “Yeah kid, I can see that. According to Karen’s readings your hypothermic. Why didn’t you radio in?”
“I didn’t want to distract you.”
“One of these days Peter I swear to God,” Tony grumbled darkly, bursting through the front of the hideout and beelining toward Peter, reaching him in seconds. “Let’s get you back to the jet.” Tony told Peter, helping to gently unbend him from his curled up position, ignoring Rhodey who was hovering behind him. Tellingly, Peter didn’t protest when Tony picked him up and took off, just burrowing in closer to the chest of the suit, basking in the minimal heat it was giving off.
“I’ll set a course to the compound, you got this?” Rhodey asked once they landed inside the quinjet, allowing the suit to open up so that he could jump out, his leg braces whirring as they came back online, taking over from the War Machine armor.
“Who are you talking to?” Tony asked with an eye roll.
“Oh excuse me I didn’t realize that you’d gotten your M.D. since I saw you last.”
“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm honey bear,” Tony told him pointedly, wrapping Peter in a shock blanket and ignoring Rhodey’s indulgent smile as he made his way to the cockpit, the jet powering up. “Alright buddy, let’s get you out of that wet suit and into something dry okay?”
Peter nodded and allowed Tony to help him peel the suit down to his waist and wrestle on a pre-warmed hoodie from the warming cabinet (let it be known that Tony Stark was nothing if not prepared) before he turned his back to give Peter privacy to shimmy out of the rest of the suit and into the pair of thick joggers Tony handed to him. “Can I get a temp FRI?” Tony asked, tucking the blanket tighter around Peter and running his fingers gently through the teens hair, trying to tamp down the worry he was feeling as he eyed the kid’s blue lips and pale features.
“Skin temperature is reading at 94.7 boss,” FRIDAY responded. “Flight time to reach the Avengers compound is approximately one hour and twenty-three minutes.”
“We can work with this,” Tony said, more to himself than Peter. “Could use some help back here platypus.”
“Coming,” Rhodey called back from the front of the jet.
While he was waiting, Tony pulled an oxygen mask off the wall and turned on the heated and humidified oxygen, gently strapping it to Peter’s face. The kid’s eyes blinked at him blearily but accepted the mask before tucking his face back into his blanket, the smallest shiver causing the fabric to ripple like water. “You know the drill kiddo,” Tony started, rubbing his hand up and down Peter’s arm to generate some heat. “Warm clothes, plenty of blankets, warm oxygen. I’m going to have Rhodey start you on some warm fluids. You can’t heat up too fast but your temp is just way to low.”
Peter just nodded and let his eyes drift shut, his head lolling forward to rest in the divot on Tony’s chest where the arc reactor had once been and Tony did what he could to stop the panic building in his chest. Peter’s weird spider biology was both a blessing and a curse: it certainly caused this mess but it was a lot more forgiving when it came to medical treatment. Even as cold as he was, Peter was extremely unlikely to get any worse or suffer any lasting effects. Tony was willing to bet his fortune that the kid would be back to normal in thirty-six hours or less.
“How’s he doing?” Rhodey asked as he joined them in the back of the jet by the medical supplies, sitting on the bench next to Peter to lend his body heat.
“Too cold. Still remember how to start fluids?” Tony asked, wrapping his arms around Peter and focusing his attention to rubbing up and down his back in gentle, soothing movements.
“Yeah, no problem.”
It took some effort to coax Peter into letting them pull his arm out from his cocoon of warmth but, after that, it was smooth sailing for Rhodey to place the catheter and start the warmed bag of Sodium Chloride before allowing Peter to pull his arm back under the blankets.
“Temp check FRI,” Tony called out as he shifted Peter to lay on his side on the bench, covering him with another warmed blanket. The kid was still awake because of their prodding but only barely.
“Temp has risen to 95.6. I have alerted Dr. Banner and he is keeping track of Peter’s vitals. He advises keeping him awake and continuing the current treatment until he can assess him. He also advises not jostling him too much.”
“You hear that kiddo?” Tony asked as Rhodey slipped back to the cockpit to radio into SHIELD for clean up. “No sleeping, doctor’s orders.” Peter let out a non-verbal whine, his eyes drooping to half mast. “Yeah I know, it sucks,” Tony told him. “Consider it retribution. You can’t keep doing this too me, I have a heart condition you know.”
“Sorry,” Peter mumbled, squirming until his head was resting in Tony’s lap, oxygen mask digging uncomfortably into Peter’s face and Tony’s leg. Tony reached out and gently adjusted it, the humidified air causing the warm plastic to fog up slightly.
“It’s okay,” Tony told him, running his hand through Peter’s wild curls. “I would have probably done the same thing,” he admitted, “but donn’t take that for permission to do it again.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it Mr. Stark,” Peter said, a smirk pulling his blue-tinged lips up, doing his best to stay awake, feeling comfortable, warm and safe and he burrowed further into his mentor’s lap.