Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s with a long sigh that Peter lands on the roof of an empty, half-renovated house—crossing his arms and quietly watching the two thieves across the street as he considers his options.

Part of him knows he shouldn’t bother. After all, they’re only trying—and failing, by the looks of it—to break into an ATM outside a closed gas station. Besides, May told him just weeks ago that he wasn’t allowed to break his curfew anymore for non-violent crimes after that frankly humiliating Bronx Zoo incident with the giant prickle of porcupines and a radicalized wannabe-PETA group. Peter and his aunt had both been up past dawn carefully tweezing quills out of his suit and skin, and May Parker laying down the law following an impromptu all-nighter of playing nurse is not someone you want to trifle with.

So yeah, he probably should go home. But it’s not like it’s out of his way, and webbing them up and having Karen call 311 to give the cops a heads up will take two minutes, tops, right?

“Piece of cake,” Peter murmurs to himself as he silently lands behind the two criminals, ignoring the reply in his head of famous last words that sounds suspiciously like a certain snarky, goateed billionaire he knows.

The thieves both have their backs to him, seemingly arguing between themselves about how to best get cash out of the ATM—one of them clumsily trying to rock it back and forth as if that will make it magically dispense money—and Peter can’t help but stand there for a few moments, watching bemusedly.

“Did you two do any research before coming out here?” he finally asks, causing the two dudes—both dressed head to toe in black—to jump and twist to face him. “This is honestly just kinda sad.”

Both of the guys have their black ski masks folded up over their foreheads—another tally mark in the category for really bad at this whole criminal thing, if you ask Peter—and the look of surprise on their faces couldn’t be more comical. On their identical faces, as it turns out.

“Oh wow, are you guys twins?” Peter asks, perking up. “Is this, like, the family business? No offense but you might want to find new careers”—he motions to the very-much-still-intact ATM—“’cause I don’t think either of you are cut out for this one.”

“Spider-Man,” the twin on the left sneers as both of them lunge for Peter. They don’t get very far however, as with another long sigh Peter lazily flings out a pair of net webs, pinning the two thieves to the pavement. 

 “Well, Tweedles, it’s been fun but I gotta jet, got an early day tomorrow,” he says to the two of them as they squirm, giving them a mock salute before turning around. 

He aims an arm out, and is about to swing away when he feels a sudden heat at his back. Brow furrowing under his mask, he turns around just in time to see the twin on the left suddenly burst into flames, the intense heat melting Peter’s webs at the same time the twin on the right does the exact opposite—body turning pale blue as ice forms on the webbing over him, freezing it until it shatters into a million pieces.

“Gotta say, I didn’t see that one coming,” Peter admits, slightly impressed as the twins get back to their feet, still respectively flamey and blue. “Do you guys have like, a shared villain name? Because this display definitely calls for a shared villain name.”

Ice shoots out of Blue’s palms at the same time Flamey lets extra sparks fly. In unison they shout: “FREEZER BURN!”

“Freezer…. Burn….” Peter dumbly repeats, only to burst into sputtering laughter—leaning over and letting his hands rest on his knees as he guffaws for a few more moments before glancing back up at them. “I don’t even know what to say… you guys are a little confused, but you got the spirit, I guess?” He forces himself to sober up as he straightens. “But seriously, I really do need to get home soon. Do you mind just like, waiting for the cops here? Pretty please?”

He barely dodges the fireball aimed straight at his head. “Hey! That was totally uncalled for, man!”

It’s followed up by a volley of ice spears, Peter swinging up onto the large canopy over the gas station fueling area and just barely managing to avoid being skewered—feeling a searing heat on his side as another fireball rakes across his hip just before he disappears out of view.

“Okay Karen, you got any ideas on how to subdue these guys that’s not webbing them up?” he asks his AI as he dodges both the flames and ice that keeps shooting up and over the edge of the canopy.

“Perhaps try the taser web function you installed last week.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Peter whispers excitedly. He smiles as he creeps back over to the canopy edge.  “You’re a genius, Kare!”

“What a nice compliment, Peter. Thank you.”

Carefully Peter lifts just one hand over the side, aiming for Flamey. With a quiet snick the taser web shoots out, hitting the dude right in the chest. He shudders in place for a few moments before the electric shock shorts out, falling to the ground unconscious.

With a yell of rage his brother doubles his efforts, dozens of spears exiting out of his palms and shooting right towards Peter. He ducks just in time, quickly scuttling over to the other side of the canopy—hoping to surprise the dude before he can succeed in his efforts to shish-kabob him. But when he leaps down, he finds nobody there but the knocked-out fire twin. 

“Huh?” he says to himself, just before his spidey sense goes absolutely insane —Peter starting to dodge to the right before he even has time to consciously decide to move. But it’s not fast enough, and something heavy and cold—a giant chunk of ice, Peter’s brain supplies—collides with the side of his head.

It feels like all his limbs suddenly weigh a ton, Peter hearing a harsh buzzing in his ears as he crashes to the pavement. 

He almost immediately starts to scramble onto his knees and elbows—his spidey sense still telling him to get up and save yourself, you idiot! —but the canopy floodlights above him are starting to swirl along with the gas station and fill-up area, and he barely manages to raise himself up a few inches before collapsing in a heap again. With an oof he lands on his stomach, a cheek pressed to the ground as he focuses on simply breathing and trying to stay awake.

He thinks Karen might be saying something to him but her voice sounds like the adults in the Charlie Brown holiday specials, and Peter can’t make out a word. He blinks lazily, watching as six pairs of feet saunter over, vision slowly combining them into one pair just before a leg lashes out and kicks him in the side.

“Stupid insect.” A steel-toed boot connects with his temple. 

Peter’s pretty sure he loses some time then, because the next thing he knows he's being dragged across pavement by one of his arms, sight barely clearing enough for him to see he's being taken away from the station, across the street. He hears two voices talking low—maybe even still taunting him—before his back and head hit something sharp and unyielding, Peter groaning with every thump of his body as he's heaved up a set of short stairs by his armpits and pulled through a doorway and across an unfinished wooden floor—the empty renovated house?

There's snickering then, someone trying to pull at his mask only for Peter to lash out instinctively—hearing the crack of bone just as his fist connects. There's a low moan before he's kicked hard in the ribs a few times, curling in on himself in response. The last kick hits him right in the temple for a second time, the drone of Karen’s voice going suddenly silent just as the HUD in his mask lenses short out, leaving Peter in darkness. 

“Just for that I’m gonna pour it on you,” someone snarls, Peter hazily wondering what in the world they’re talking about as his head pounds, fighting the urge to give in to the impenetrable black that’s threatening to take over the aura flashing behind his eyelids.

His question is answered when he feels a trickle of something wet land on his stomach, opening his eyes to see either Blue or Flamey—their figure now too blob-like for him to discern which one—standing over him, a giant red container with a small spout in their arms. 

Peter has only half a second to consider what they’re dousing him in when the pungent smell reaches his nose, invading his senses in a way the chemical hadn’t even come close to at the station. 

Gasoline.

“No—don’t–,” he starts to say before the trickle-turned-onslaught reaches his neck and face, Peter immediately coughing as the liquid saturates his mask and dribbles into his mouth and nostrils. He can’t breathe, the chemicals feeling like they’re burning the delicate tissue of his throat as he struggles to pull in oxygen around the torrent of liquid.

Peter puts his arms up to guard his face in a weak attempt to stop the attack but it’s no use. The dizziness that he has just enough coherence to recognize is the result of a bad concussion quickly combines with the effects of the gasoline, all serving to render him unable to either fight back or get away. 

In a last-ditch effort to save himself, he feebly twists his head from side to side to get out from under the poisonous flow, but it’s like it’s following his movements—his torturer deliberately aiming for his face to exert maximum pain and injury.

Everything starts to go hazy again, Peter feeling the pull of unconsciousness once more as he flops on the floor like a fish out of water. Nausea abruptly creeps into his body’s growing list of complaints, a distant but palpable terror surging through his mind at the thought that he could very well die choking on his own vomit if he passes out right now. But even that fear isn’t enough to keep him tethered to reality, and he’s just about to let go and release himself into the black when the onslaught turns back into a dribble and soon enough just a few drips, before disappearing entirely.

He hears the sound of the now-empty plastic gas container hit a far wall, before one of the twins whispers menacingly in his ear. “Time to really heat things up.”

More snickers, a sharp high-five and the thumps of sneakers against wood, before those too fade out.

With the twins now gone Peter relaxes enough to attempt a giant breath, and while the pull of it sears his lungs like acid, it manages to rouse him just enough to fumble at the bottom of his mask, pulling it up just over his mouth and taking another big gulp.

But instead of clean air like he’d hoped, there’s something new in the air, Peter coughing again only for his spidey sense to flare up. Without thinking he turns back on his side and pulls his dead mask all the way off.

His vision is blurry and distorted but still Peter realizes the haziness in the room is from more than the concussion and subsequent poisoning, tendrils of thick smoke wafting in his sight line as he sees flames dance along the wall across from him. 

He has just enough awareness to realize Flamey must have started the fire with the intent to burn him alive when another hacking fit overtakes him. By the time it’s over Peter is laid out on his back again, feeling exhausted beyond belief. But the pain in his throat and lungs has dulled, Peter feeling mildly grateful for it even as he knows it’s likely because he still isn’t able to breathe properly. 

Peter nearly gives in as he lays there helplessly, chuckling manically at the thought that he’ll definitely miss curfew now only for the memory of May to enter his mind. 

May. She’s probably still up and wondering where he is, if he’s okay—a lump that tastes distinctly like guilt welling up in his raw throat at the idea of what losing him would do to her.

He can’t die here. It would kill May, and he would rather die—or live, in this instance—before hurting her. No, Peter has to fight.

With a new surge of adrenaline Peter rolls once more onto his side, blinking slowly as he tries to get a hold on his surroundings. The flames that had been against the far wall are now stretched across three and steadily climbing up the ceiling of the room, but the lone wall still untouched is—miraculously, Peter thinks—the one with the doorway. With a groan Peter gets onto his hands and knees and begins to crawl towards it, not trusting himself not to collapse if he tries to get to his feet. 

It’s slow-going, and Peter can’t help having to stop to spit out drool and probably some bile or even, God, sloughs of burned throat skin as he makes his way across the room. His vision has narrowed to a pinpoint—whether because of the growing smoke, puffy eyelid skin from the gasoline, concussion or all the above, he’s not sure—and eventually Peter closes his eyes, focusing only on putting one hand and knee in front of the other even as the oxygen in the room continues to thin out as the fire grows, threatening to steal him away before he’s reached safety. 

Finally Peter collapses through the door and takes the deepest breath he can only for more smoke to flood his swollen throat—opening his eyes just enough to realize that he still has one more room to cross to get to the front door and safety.

There’s a searing heat along the back of his thighs and shins which tells Peter in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t get out in the next thirty seconds or less, he’s toast. But despite the last leg of his journey being all of ten feet, it might as well be ten thousand miles for all the energy Peter has left—crawling a few more inches only for his trembling legs and elbows to finally give out on him.

Morbidly he finds himself hoping that he passes out for good before the flames reach him.

Everything feels weighed down, the pain of his injuries going numb, Peter’s thoughts begin to wander to old and happy memories even as he slowly twists his head to look out the door. He can feel a waft of cool air flow in and brush against his brow, soothing him to the point he nearly forgets the pain in his lungs and now along the soles of his feet—the flames slowly but steadily catching up to him, just like that one fable he can’t recall the name of. Peter knows if they reach him something bad will happen, but for the life of him he can’t remember anymore what that is, nor why it matters.

Perhaps if he just rests a bit, it’ll come to him. Peter lets his eyes finally close again, head drooping until with a soft sigh his cheek rests against the hot floor. For a moment he thinks he hears someone screaming his name but it’s soon lost amongst the sharp crackling of wood, the roaring of flames, and the all-encompassing haze in his mind.

He’s about to sink into the darkness when a searing heat suddenly ripples over his body, his vision whiting out from the pain. 

With one final croaked breath, Peter is consumed.

Chapter Text

“Ice or no ice, honeybear?” Tony calls out from the lab’s kitchenette, pouring some Coke into a glass. 

“Only if you got those little frozen plastic ones,” Rhodey yells back from where he’s busy at the welding station, using a MIG to finish up some repairs to one of his War Machine boots.

Tony pulls a few out from the freezer and plops them into the glass, before grabbing his own mug of coffee and walking over. Rhodey pauses in his work, the auto-darkener of his protective helmet revealing his eyes just as he pulls it off entirely, grabbing the drink from Tony with a nod of thanks and taking a big gulp.

“What would Pepper say to you not choosing decaf when it’s nearly midnight?” he asks as he watches Tony sip.

“Probably that I need to quit this shit before it kills me,” Tony admits. “But then I’d say something like ‘and who was chugging down caffeinated black tea as they finished writing reports until four in the morning last Tuesday?’ and it’d be a KO.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “Hopeless addicts, the both of you.”

“Says the man who asked me to grab him Coca-Cola a few minutes ago.”

“As a treat, Tones, not a hab–”

“Excuse the interruption, Colonel,” FRIDAY interrupts, “but Boss, I’ve just lost contact with Karen.”

“Who’s Karen?” Rhodey asks just as Tony straightens up, the playful look disappearing from his expression. 

“Pete’s AI—don’t ask about the name, I have no clue. Lost contact exactly how, FRI?”

“I am uncertain, but she went offline just after reporting that Peter had sustained a concussion along with two rib fractures.”

“Have you tried a remote reboot? Diagnostics?”

“Yes, boss. There’s nothing. If I had to wager a guess I’d say that likely due to some sort of damage to the mask wiring, perhaps related to when Peter was initially injured.”

“What was the kid’s last location?”

“Queens, about twenty blocks from May Parker’s home. A closed Gas’N’Go.”

“Shit, okay,” Tony mutters, rubbing at his chin before turning to Rhodey, “Care to take your suit for a ride, platypus? See how that boot holds up?”

Rhodey levels a stare. “Do you really have to ask?”

The two are in the air less than thirty seconds later, heading in the direction of Queens. 

As they fly through Manhattan and across the river, Tony has FRIDAY play back the baby monitor protocol footage. He shakes his head at the stupid villain moniker, only to wince when the kid gets hit by some type of projectile—probably ice—and taken down. He feels his anger and worry grow as Peter is then dragged across pavement and thumped up some steps into an—abandoned house? His heart rate skyrockets when Tweedledee tries to lift up the kid’s mask, only to chuckle when he gets a broken cheekbone for his troubles. But the worry returns when Tweedledum kicks the kid in the head in retaliation, shorting out Karen and probably the mask altogether.

“There’s nothing else, FRI?”

“Nothing, boss. I’ve been trying to ping Karen every three seconds but no luck.”

“Not even an injuries report? GPS?”

“Negative.”

“So we don’t even know if he’s still there,” Tony says, then on the comm to Rhodey, “Pete got hit in the head at least twice, maybe more. The suit is still out, so I can’t confirm his status or location. And there’s two baddies—identical twins with powers, Human Torch and Iceman wannabes by the looks of it.”

Rhodey curses. “So what’s the bad news?”

Before Tony can reply to the quip he spots a thick, dark tendril rising up into the sky ahead. Smoke, he thinks. Fire powers.

“You see that?” Rhodey asks.

“I do,” Tony answers gravely, before hitting the thrusters and racing for the scene. He had expected to see the gas station on fire—perhaps even about to blow—and is only mildly relieved when it’s the house across the way, just in time for his mind to catch up to the footage he had just watched.

Frantically he looks up and down the street, soon spotting two figures running about a block and a half away.

“Assholes at three o’clock,” he says in the comm.

“On it,” Rhodey replies just as he takes off in their direction. Tony pays them no more heed, instead focusing on the burning house. The place is an inferno, the smoke too thick for Tony to see inside. 

“FRIDAY, thermal vision,” he says as he flies closer and peers into a large window—glass already melting although the fire hadn’t yet reached it. Tony’s HUD lights up with an array of oranges, reds, and whites but then—there! A yellow shape on the floor, right in the front room. A shape that looks distinctly like a prone body.

“Pete!” Tony yells, blasting through the window. Even through the layers of his suit he can immediately feel the intense heat all around him, FRIDAY throwing up warnings that he ignores—focused only on the boy lying unmoving on his stomach, the fire only inches from his splayed feet.

But not entirely unmoving, Tony realizes. The kid is shaking, no, convulsing —his body taut and strained as he flops.

“Pete? Peter?” Tony calls even as he desperately heaves the boy up and into his arms before taking off—not missing the way the flames lick hungrily at his toes. 

One second more and the kid would have been fuckin’ toast, burnt to a damn crisp.

But Tony doesn’t let himself consider how close a call this was as he flies up and away from the inferno beneath—too focused on the maskless kid in his arms, a kid whose body is still violently jerking. Now that they’re out of the smoke Tony can see that his face and eyelids are swollen and puffy, but there’s no discoloration to indicate bruising. Despite his confusion, he forces himself to focus on the greater threat.

“FRIDAY? What’s wrong with him? Why is he convulsing?”

“Without access to Karen I can’t be sure, boss. According to Peter’s health records he has no history of seizures, so it is likely it’s an external cause—perhaps the head trauma.”

As if in apology FRIDAY throws up the stats she can get from the skin-to-suit contact—Tony now seeing in bright red that Peter’s vitals, and particularly his oxygen levels, are critical. 

Tony takes in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. This is really, really damn bad.  

No sooner has he thought it than Peter suddenly goes limp in his arms, his O2 dipping even further.

“Kid?” Tony calls desperately, then using his shoulder to shimmy the kid’s head into the crook of his neck, “Wake up, Peter!” 

No response. Oh god, don’t be dead, oh god, nonono–

In a shakier voice Tony says, “FRIDAY–”

“He’s still breathing, boss, but it’s slow and labored. His airway seems to be heavily compromised, the reason for which I am uncertain. I’m also detecting some type of chemical soaking his suit and skin, but without Karen I cannot at present determine its components.”

Tony stifles down a frustrated sob, instead holding Peter closer and letting his own mask lift up as he says to the slack face, “You’re gonna be okay, Pete. We’re gonna–”

He suddenly makes a disgusted face, his head instinctively jerking away from the scent invading his nose before he leans back in, taking another careful sniff. 

Gasoline? But—

“Oh god,” Tony whispers, putting it all together, feeling rage at those two idiots well up in him again. The assholes had covered Peter in fuckin’ gas and then left him alone, injured and defenseless in a burning building to die a horrible death. If Tony ever got his hands on them–

“Deep breaths, boss. You need to stay calm, for Peter’s sake.”

Tony forces the rage down, but still his body trembles with repressed anger—and not a small amount of worry and fear—as he makes his way toward the tower. He barely grunts an acknowledgement at Rhodey when the man comes back on the comms to let him know he’s apprehended the twins, and is just waiting for the authorities to arrive to take them out of his custody. He doesn’t ask Tony how Peter is, no doubt having gotten the lowdown from FRIDAY before he reached out.

“He’s gonna be okay, Tones,” is what his best friend offers instead, knowing Tony well enough not to expect a response when he’s this panicked. “I’ll be at the tower ASAP. War Machine, out.”

But just as Tony reaches the tower, what had been passing for quiet wheezes suddenly goes silent, Tony looking down at Peter in alarm just as FRIDAY exclaims, “He’s stopped breathing, boss!”

In response Tony skyrockets toward the medbay balcony, quickly laying Peter down on the gurney the nurses had rolled out. Now that there is light all around them and Tony no longer has to focus on keeping his cargo safe, it’s easier to see just how awful Peter looks—his exposed skin beet red, face swollen to double its size and increasingly pale, lips a violent blue. 

And still, too still, Tony thinks as he’s whisked down the hall by the night staff, disappearing into a trauma room and out of Tony’s sight.

Now alone, with nobody to be strong for, Tony feels the panic catching up with him. Putting a hand on against the balcony wall to steady himself, he takes a few deep breaths—not letting himself think about how Peter hadn’t been doing the same just now. 

“He’s going to be alright, boss,” FRIDAY says quietly into his ear, but the words no longer hold any comfort for him, not after what he’d just witnessed.

Tony’s voice is raspy as he whispers, “I hope you’re right.”

The first time Peter wakes up, he just floats. His body feels heavy but not unpleasantly so, his sticky eyelids sealed even as he tries to blink. There’s something in his throat, but his lungs are expanding just fine, and when he clenches his hands he feels only soft blankets in his grip.

He must make a noise or movement, because suddenly the fisted blankets are replaced with a warm hand, thin fingers with rounded nails gently pressing into the skin of his palm. It’s a hand he’d know anywhere, one he’s been reaching for since he was four years old.

Peter? Honey?

Peter gives May’s hand a weak squeeze, feels a firm one back. Another hand in his hair, soothing and protective.

Go back to sleep, sweetheart. You’re safe, I promise.

Peter listens, and drifts.

The second time Peter wakes up, it’s a bit more abrupt. He hears the beeping of a monitor first, initially in the distance but soon pulling him out of the black and into awareness. The clean smell of bleach and antiseptic along with the rubbery, stuffed up feeling of a nasal cannula comes next, Peter recognizing the sensations. He’s in the tower medbay.

The obstruction in his throat is gone, but when he swallows he feels only pain and a deep raw tenderness. His eyes are gunky and pressed down. Carefully Peter raises an arm, skin pulling tight and hot, as though he’d been badly sunburnt. But the pain is easily forgotten when he feels a thick bandage over his eyes, shutting out any possibility of opening them. There's the sudden desire to rip it off, mind immediately going to worst case scenarios as with weak, shaky fingers he fumbles at the edge of the wrapping, sharp breaths coming out fast as the beeping speeds up.

A chair suddenly scrapes, someone sniffling as if coming to from a deep sleep only for a hand—one with thicker fingers than May’s and calluses on the pads—to grab his and pull it down, away from his face.

“Don’t touch, Pete,” Tony orders.

Peter licks his lips. His voice sounds wrecked, barely a whisper as he desperately replies, “But—my eyes, I can’t–”

“Your eyes are fine,” Tony says patiently but firmly, leaving no room for Peter’s continued doubt. He gives Peter’s hand another quick squeeze, a single pulse of reassurance— I wouldn’t lie to you about this —that immediately calms Peter. “The bandage is to protect your lids and the delicate area around them—the gasoline did a number on the skin there in particular.”

“Gas—gasoline?” Peter asks, only for his throat to rebel in a series of sharp coughs that burn.

Tony presses his free hand against Peter’s chest, steadying him. As soon as the coughs subside, he lets go. A moment later he says, “Open your mouth,” Peter doing so only to feel something nice and cool settle on his tongue.

The ice chips taste like heaven, but something about the swift change from hot to cold must trigger his memory, because it all comes flooding back in one fell swoop—the gas station, the twins, freezer burn. And then—too fast—fire and ice and pain and fear and choking and more fire, too much, too much and heat and the terror of being burned alive.

“Hey, hey Pete,” Tony says quietly, somehow recognizing Peter’s mounting panic even without the aid of reading his eyes, “It’s okay. You’re safe now, I promise.”

Peter gives a small nod, chewing more on the ice before carefully swallowing. It’s slightly less painful to speak as he rasps, “What happened? I’m not…” 

Burned.

It lingers in the air, unspoken.

The hand gripped in his squeezes just a bit tighter, betraying Tony’s tension even as his tone remains carefully neutral, almost nonchalant. “Just chemical burns, and not deep. But they practically dipped you in the crap—you were convulsing when I arrived. Turns out even spiders need time to heal from toxic liquid exposure.”

As Peter processes that, Tony continues, “The good news is your concussion is already healed—good thing you have a hard head to protect that big brain of yours, eh?”

Peter huffs out a laugh, more at the way Tony is obviously trying to keep things light for his sake than anything else. But he’s gotta admit that the tactic works, the fear from just a minute earlier along with the influx of bad memories both fading as he allows himself to settle comfortably with the fact that the danger is long passed. “What happened to Freezer Burn?”

“God, of all the monikers…” Tony snorts, the seat of his leather chair squeaking as he shifts.  “Rhodey got ‘em while I was busy fishing you out of the house. You’re not gonna see them around Queens any time soon, that’s for damn sure.”

Peter nods, then, brow furrowing under the bandage, “Was May here? The first time I woke up–”

“She went to lie down a little while ago. We’ve been taking turns sitting with you. That was, uh, two nights ago now.”

Tony’s tone is nothing but matter-of-fact but all the same a warmth blossoms in Peter’s chest, wholly unrelated to the lingering tightness from breathing. 

“Have you slept?” he asks pointedly.

A pause. “I fail to see how that matters.”

“Just admit it,” Peter says, lips curling up, “you were worried.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

There’s some incoherent grumbling then, but Peter doesn’t have to see his mentor’s face to know he’s smiling.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark,” he says sincerely. “For getting me out of there.”

There’s a pause, followed by a long, guilt-ridden sigh. “I just barely made it in time, kid. If I’d been any later, or if Rhodey hadn’t been there and I’d gone after those two idiots instead…”

“But that didn’t happen, and you got me out.” Peter searches his mind for another point to bolster his argument. He blames the painkillers that are most definitely coursing through his veins when all he comes up with is, “You’re like Chuck Norris, but cooler.”

Tony laughs, genuine and relaxed. “How the hell do you know who Chuck Norris is?”

“Chuck Norris jokes, duh.”

“Those are still a thing?”

“Ned has a whole book of ‘em.” Peter smiles, trying to think back to some of the better ones. “Iron Man doesn’t breathe, he holds air hostage.”

Tony groans. “That doesn’t even make physiological sen–”

“Iron Man does not sleep. He waits.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. Sleep is overrated.” A beat. “Except for people named Peter Benjamin Parker, who absolutely need their rest to–”

“Once a cobra bit Iron Man’s leg. After five days, the cobra died.”

Tony hums. “Actually, I nearly tested that one out in the desert, after my escape. I think my yelp when it darted out scared the snake just as much as it scared me.” 

After a few moments two fingers gently poke Peter over his bandage, right between his eyes. “Okay Pete, I get it. I’ll try to stop with the excessive self-flagellating. But it was a really close call. The kind of close I’d prefer never to have a repeat of.”

Peter’s grin falls—remembering someone who he knows now can only have been Tony desperately screaming for him just before he blacked out from the convulsions. 

Tony pats his knee again, bringing him back to the present. “Get some more shut-eye. Shouldn’t be too hard, considering the state of those peepers.”

If Peter could he would have rolled his ‘peepers’, but all the same he can’t deny the wave of exhaustion that’s hitting him again—his healing factor all but begging him to fill the reserves so it can get back to work.

“‘Kay,” Peter says with a yawn, resting his head back on the pillow—hearing Tony pull out his tablet and start typing away. 

As he slowly starts to fade out, Peter finds himself wondering how it’s possible to trust so implicitly that someone—your favorite childhood superhero, at that—will come to save you in time, while also knowing deep in your soul that one day, that won’t be true. 

Sleepily he vows to himself that just like he chose to fight for May back at the house, when that day comes he’ll just have to fight for Tony too. And Ned, and MJ, and his other friends. His parents. Uncle Ben, maybe most of all.

And just like back at the house, the last thing he hears is Tony’s voice, this time sounding a little mystified and a lot self-congratulatory when he says to himself, “‘Chuck Norris, but cooler.’ Well, how ‘bout that.”

With a small smile Peter pushes away his worries of the future to mull over another day, and lets himself rest.