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“Protocol web damage” Friday’s calm voice blasted through the speakers of the meeting room that Pepper Potts and Tony Stark had been stuck in for the last hour. Frozen, Tony turned to his fiance with wide eyes. Pepper met his gaze and nodded before Tony shot out of his seat and was out of the meeting room in a flash.
The red head took a breath before telling the investors, “There has been a family emergency, we will contact you with an alternate date and time,” before talking into her earpiece and exiting the room in a fast walk.
“Friday, tell Helen that Peter will be in the med bay within half an hour.”
“She has been informed.” The AI’s voice sounded in her ear piece. Pepper sighed in relief and took her phone out of her pocket. After sending off a quick, ‘Peter’s been hurt’ text to May, Pepper clicked on Tony’s contact and listened as it rang 5 times before the billionaire picked up.
A sigh was heard before Tony spoke, “It’s not good Pep. He’s unconscious and there’s a lot of blood. Probably a few broken bones.”
Pepper nodded to herself, “I’ve texted May and asked Helen to prepare the medbay.” The CEO paused, “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later, after I get him to the medbay.” Repulsors could be heard in the background as the hero sped through the air. “I’m almost there. Talk later?” After a quick yes from Pepper the call was ended.
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Peter stirred and opened his eyes to Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts bury forms. With a few more blinks the adults became more than foggy outlines. “Msr stak?” At his jumbled words the man shot up and was at Peter’s side in a second. “Oh thank god kid.”
“What happened?” As if summoned Dr. Cho entered the room, “You were attacked and poisoned. The poison, however, instead of killing you like it was supposed to, it started to fight with your healing. You won’t die but your healing won’t be able to you with any of your other injuries.”
The curly haired teen stared down at his feet, “Oh.”
Dr. Cho sighed. “You’re stuck in here for the next week or so until your healing kicks back in and helps you with some of those injuries. Sorry Peter.”
He gave a small smile to the doctor before turning to Mr. Stark, “Where’s Aunt May?” The billionaire gave his intern a smile, “Sorry underoos, she got caught up with the hospital. She said that she would be in by tomorrow.”
Peter nodded at the answer. “Hey Mr. Stark, do you know where my phone is? I should probably text Ned and MJ.” Mr. Stark dug his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Peter. Opening the group chat Peter quickly scanned the new messages then sent his own.
2 idiots and MJ
Peter-man: im alive
Ned in the chair: DUDE
Ned in the chair: what happened? where are you?
Queen MJ: why weren’t you in school today
Peter-man: im fine, i got poisoned
Peter-man: my healing isn’t working cause poison so im stuck in bed until my healings back
Queen MJ: you’re an idiot
Ned in the chair: im guessing youre missing school a while
Peter-man: yee the schools not gonna be happy
Peter-man: [selfie of him in the hospital bed]
Ned in the chair: that sucks dude, you’re gonna miss the field trip
Peter-man: good
Peter-man: have you seen my history with field trips?
Queen MJ: at least you get a break from flash
Peter-man: yeah
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The next few days passed in a hurry in a whirlwind of homework and visitors. All the Avengers visited at one point, sometimes just a quick stop with a, “Hope you get better soon” and sometimes they would end up talking for hours. Dr. Banner, or Bruce as he kept saying to call him, came in and ended up leaving four hours later with a promise to bring a laptop and paper the next day.
Peter had talked with the scientist before but being able to talk quantum physics for hours with someone who did their thesis on it? It was a world different.
On Thursday, day four stuck in the medbay, Mr. Stark asked if a tour could come in and see the medbay. Peter, having only seen two people that day agreed immediately and even told his mentor that he would be happy to talk to them about all the equipment that they had him set up on right now.
Like all other days in the past week, Peter spent the days playing on his phone, texting with Mr. Stark, and talking with Friday. Around noon Mr. Stark send him a brief warning simply saying, ‘school tour t-minus 15 minutes’ and a second later, ‘prepare yourself this one has a jerk(tm)’
With a sigh the vigilante put down his phone and tidied the place as much as he could from his place stuck in bed. After being slightly more satisfied with the amount of mess surrounding the bed he sent a text to Charlie, an intern in R&D that had gotten stuck on tour duty, letting them know that they could come in with the tour.
A few minutes passed and just as Peter started wondering if they were even coming at all his phone dinged with a message telling him that they were here outside the medbay. Peter typed out a quick, ‘okay I’ll let you in.’ and spoke to the seemingly empty room, “Please let them in Friday.” A moment passed and the door slid open, letting the class and tour guide enter the medbay.
Charlie, looking slightly surprised that Peter was the bed ridden injured person, led the class into the room reviewing the no touch rule. The feeling of dread appeared and quickly grew larger as Peter began to recognize the class as his AcDec team.
The college student walked towards the corner area that Peter had been staying in. “Hey Junior, are you sure you want to talk to them? There’s a few that are just pain assholes”
Shook out of his dread by Charlie’s question Peter stared up at the other intern, “It gets worse. These are my AcDec teammates.”
“Oooof. Sometimes I forget you’re still in high school.” They said laughing at Peter's misfortune. Peter glared at them, ending up looking more like an angry puppy then anything else, before sighing, “You should get back and make sure they don’t break anything. And they’re already here, even if you don’t tell them I’m here they’ll still find out.”
“Got it Miny Boss.” Charlie laughed as they rounded the corner to where the main group was.
“Okay everyone, there is someone healing right now and he said that it was okay if you asked him questions about his recovery and the tech that is being used.” Peter listened as the room burst into chatter, flinching at all the noise. “That being said he is still healing and you need to be respectful of his space.”
That should at least give Charlie a reason to get them out if they’re too loud. Peter closes his eyes, wary of the reactions. It only took a few minutes till he heard the first gasp and the room exploded into noise again. Sighing, Peter opened his eyes to see the gawkers, “Hi.”
Flash, having been one of the gawkers, got over his shock and started yelling at the bed ridden Peter, “HA poor puny Parker. How’s all that orphan pity treating you? You’re only here because they pitied you cause your parents are dead.” Even though it was nothing Peter hadn’t heard he couldn’t help the slight flinch from the statement.
The rest of the team ignored Flash’s usual remarks and settled on swarming Peter with questions. “Peter!” Betty yelled over the others, “What happened?” Peter probably should have been prepared for this question but he couldn’t exactly till the team that he had gotten kidnapped while being Spider-man. Instead he just settled for shrugging.
Mr. Harrington was in the back with a watchful eye looking for anything that would give him an excuse to yell at Peter. Charlie was out of hearing range watching the other kids and making sure they didn’t touch or break any of the expensive resources.
After a bit of questioning Peter was saved by Charlie peeking over and seeing the scene of a very overwhelmed Peter surrounded by yelling kids either bullying him or demanding answers of questions that everyone knew were classified. They quickly stepped in telling the teens in a firm voice that, “Why are you bothering a recovering patient? It doesn’t matter if you know him, he’s recovering and did not tell you that you could question him.”
Glaring at Mr. Harrington the tour guide continued, “We will be ending the tour here. Why were you allowing your students to bother someone in recovery?” The last part was very clearly directed at Mr. Harrington. The teacher stumbled over his words trying to explain as Charlie glared at him.
“Go.” All the teens speed walked over to the door, not wanting to get in any more trouble. However Mr. Harrington must have had a problem because he stayed back and tried to get Charlie in trouble, “Excuse me miss, you have no right to end the tour before the tour is done”
Charlie cut into the older man’s sentence, “My pronouns are they/them, for I am not a woman and will not take to being called one. I also have the right to end the tour right when I want to if multiple rules are broken or anyone is being disrespectful to any staff, guests, or property. Now you will watch your students and make sure none of them run off while I talk to Peter.” After making sure the man was back into the hallway with the rest of the students being watched by Friday Charlie turned back to the still slightly overwhelmed Peter.
“Thank you Charlie.”
“They had no right to do that, I was just doing my job.” Charlie paused, “Junior. You’re being bullied. Why didn’t you tell anyone? 75% of the people who work here could and would take care of it.”
The teen sighed, hanging his head, “I didn’t want anyone to worry. I can handle it.”
This time it was Charlie’s time to sigh, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I’m going telling Mr. Stark or Ms. Potts.”
“Please don’t tell them! I don’t want to bother them.”
“Kid… you aren’t bothering them. Besides, would you rather them find out from Friday?”
Peter sighed again, this time in defeat, “Okay fine. You should go lead them out.”
With a glance back Charlie left the medbay to deal with his team.
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Both Mr. Harrington and Flash left the building with a notice of being banned of being within 20 feet of any Stark owned building. The rest of the team left with a warning. Ned and MJ ended up staying with permission from their parents and spent the rest of the day with Peter. Charlie left the building at the end of the day with a large raise and a promise of a job after college should they want it.
Peter ended the day curled up (as much as he could with several broken bones) on the couch between Mr. Stark and Pepper watch Up for the 100th time together.