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“Hey,” says Tony. He snaps his fingers in front of Peter’s face. “Pay attention to this.”
Peter blinks, and he nods, and attempts to focus on watching what Tony does with the tools and the wires. He’s explaining as he goes, but words have lost their meaning and Tony’s talking fast. Not that that’s unusual. Tony always rapid fires his explanation during their training sessions in the lab.
Usually Peter keeps up, usually has no trouble at all registering Tony’s ramblings, putting him on a small list with Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy. It’s different that night, though.
His head throbs with a steering ache that only grows more and more blinding as the night progresses. He’s taken hits on the head during his patrols before, but they haven’t bothered him like this, pursuing him relentlessly and spinning his head round and round until the lab tilts and sways along with him.
Tony reaches out and grips his arm before he falls backwards and hits his head a second time.
“Okay, kid, you’ve been acting funny all night. Are you sick? What’s the deal?” asks Tony.
He covers Peter’s forehead with his hand, attempting to check his temperature, but instead causes Peter to whimper and flinch and try to back away. Tony’s firm grip pins him to the spot, keeping him upright and close enough for him to flick Peter’s hair from his forehead with a screwdriver.
Tony gives a low whistle. “That’s one hell of a bruise, Pete.”
“‘Urts,” says Peter, now that his secret is revealed, and there’s no point in hiding it anymore.
“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” says Tony. He shepherds him over to the couch. “You need to be sitting down.”
Sitting down definitely feels better than standing, but the lab still spins and Peter begins to regret forcing himself to scarf down all that Thai food from earlier.
“Did that happen on patrol?”
“Yeah,” says Peter, softly, forcing himself to keep his head still and not to nod.
“Could’ve told me,” says Tony. “Feel like the world’s biggest moron rambling on to someone with mush for brains and probably has a concussion.”
“I don’t have a concussion.” Peter doesn’t debate the mush for brains part of Tony’s accusation. It’s pretty obvious it’s correct or he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
“That’s for the medics to decide,” says Tony.
Peter groans, and sinks into the couch even further. He hates the tower’s medbay, hates it because he spends entirely too much time there and being on a first name basis with the doctors and nurses isn’t exactly an achievement he wants to have.
“What if you didn’t make me go see a doctor?”
Tony laughs. “Yeah, what if you slipped into a coma and I had to explain to your aunt why?”
Peter frowns, and Tony gently tugs on his arm, pulling him up and starting the long walk towards the elevator.
“I’d never forgive myself, either, Pete.”
Peter whines, but he supposes he’ll forgive him. Eventually.
*
The doctor declares that he’s concussion free, and Peter rejoices at the opportunity to hand Tony the I-told-you-so that he owes him. It doesn’t have the desired effect and Tony enacts his revenge by wheeling him up to the suite in one of the medbay’s wheelchairs.
He’ll never admit it, but it’s nice not having to walk. The extra strength pain killers are still trying to take effect and although his surroundings no longer appear to be spinning, he’s still dizzy enough to try and faceplant again if he’s left to manage walking around on his own.
Tony helps him get settled into the bed of the guest room.
“So,” says Tony, once Peter’s all cozy and covered up, once the painkillers are starting to make him all dopey. “You never told me how you managed this bruise. What was it? Car thief? Man stealing somebody’s purse got the better of you?”
“No,” says Peter. “It was the raccoon.”
“The raccoon?”
“The raccoon from hell,” says Peter. He closes his eyes, and Tony presses a cold washcloth against his forehead. “He stole my sandwich.”
“Is this the painkillers talking?”
“I wish. That’d be a lot less humiliating.”
Tony laughs. “Okay, I’m definitely going to need the whole story.”
“I was taking a mid patrol snack break on top of the convenience store, right?” Peter starts, focusing on how good the cold cloth gently pressed into his forehead feels, and how now that the good stuff’s running through his veins, he’s finally feeling the pain ebb away. “And this raccoon comes up, and he’s kind of cute, so I give him a little piece of my sandwich.”
“Oh, Pete, never feed the raccoons…”
“He wasn’t happy with just a little piece, and long story short, he wrangled the entire thing from me.”
“I’d love to know how a raccoon was able to wrangle Spider-Man’s sandwich from him,” says Tony.
“He scratched up my arm real good, Mr. Stark.”
Tony doesn’t even try to muffle his laughter. Once he’s let it all loud, he clears his throat. “That still doesn’t explain the giant bruise on your head.”
“Well, I chased him.”
“The raccoon?” asks Tony. “You chased the raccoon?”
“He stole my sandwich,” mutters Peter. He doesn’t know what about that Tony isn’t understanding. Clearly he’s never had a sandwich from Delmar’s.
“And what were you planning to do once you got to him? Please do not say steal it back and eat it.”
“Of course not,” says Peter. “Just take it back, so he couldn’t eat it. If I can’t have my sandwich, no one else can.”
“Real mature,” says Tony. “So I’m assuming some misfortune happened to you during the chase.”
“I was so fixated on chasing the raccoon,” says Peter, “I tripped and slammed my head into the side of a dumpster.”
“Ouch.” There’s sympathy in Tony’s voice, and Peter can almost forgive him for laughing about his sandwich getting lifted by a mean spirited raccoon.
“Ouch is right.”
“Next time a raccoon steals your sandwich and you nearly put yourself into a coma trying to win it back,” says Tony, just as Peter starts to drift off, “let me know sooner, will you.”
“Okay, Mr. Stark.”
*
A stuffed raccoon sits at the breakfast table and Peter glares at it when he sits down to eat.
“Really?”
“I wanted you to have a memento,” Tony tells him. “In case the dumpster inflicted brain trauma caused you to forget your spat with a raccoon.”
Peter picks up the stuffed animal, and the jokes on Tony, cause that thing’s ten times more cute than the actual sandwich thief. “I like him.”
“You would.”
Peter narrows his eyes at Tony, then sits the raccoon down and starts working on his pancakes. He stops. Eyes the stuffed animal and becomes a little suspicious. He picks it up and tosses out of the kitchen and into the living room, where it bounces off the couch and lands on the floor.
“I thought you liked him.”
“I do,” says Peter. “I just don’t trust anything raccoon shaped around my pancakes.”
Tony barks out a laugh. “Never change, kid.”
Peter takes the raccoon back to Queens with him. He keeps Rocky the raccoon in his closet, away from the kitchen, but appreciates the reminder he brings every time he’s looking for a clean shirt or a pair of socks.