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“You have to let go, Peter,” Steve urged gently. “I need my hands to get you out.”
The young super hero had an iron grip on Steve's shoulders. The team was in the Amazon to bust some alien tech. A simple operation. Fury had encouraged Peter’s presence to acclimate him to different environments on a relatively simple mission. The had landed two days ago to scout the area and await for the dealers to arrive at the warehouse deep in the Amazon forest. But it had all taken a nasty turn.
Peter had been travelling through the trees to scout out the base and was returning to his team on the ground. Instead of landing softly from the canopy he landed on a poachers trap undetected due to its rudimentary design. It had bound him up in barbed wire, fixing his legs together, a coil around his neck. The sharp military grade barbs penetrated his suit, each struggle he made caused the coils to tighten piercing him further.
Feeling the wire ensnare him, Peter panicked and flailed wildly causing the wire to constrict him. Steve lunged to still him, in turn Peter had grasped the Captain’s shoulders and was refusing to let go.
“Peter, I’ve got you,” he soothed trying to pry the kid’s hands away from his shoulders but he panicked and the noose around his neck tightened.
“Woah, woah!” Clamoured Clint as he bound up the tree Peter dangled from. “Cap, you hold him there. Just stay still Steve, keep him still.”
“What’s going on?” Tony spoke over the comms awaiting news from Steve.
“Rain check Tony. Peter’s been caught in a poachers' trap and we’re trying to get him down,” Steve responded. Peter ripped off his mask, sweat glistening on his forehead and blood pooling along his jaw. His breathing uneven as he tried to stifle his panic in the humidity.
“What!”
“I’m fine Tony...I,” he choked out. “It’s just-just some wire.”
“I’m coming over there.”
“No!” Peter spluttered at the same time Clint had clipped one of the wires. He slipped forward and tightened his grip further (if that was even possible) on Steve’s shoulders. “Don’t-don’t compromise the mission. Clint’s getting me down, Steve’s stopping the wire from taking all my weight, I’m fine, honestly.”
Steve was impressed at the kid’s composure. At only nineteen he was doing well despite the humidity, his injuries and the pressure of the mission. Tony sighed on the line, “give us an update when you’re free .”
He began to talk to Nat who he was teamed with and Bruce who was minding the quinjet.
“Okay Pete, you’re gonna drop a little but it’s alright. I’m gonna untangle your legs,” Clint warned and Steve and Peter braced. But it wasn’t enough, Peter fell forward more than Clint expected. His legs came free but the rings of wire constricted further around his waist and he flipped around. His feet dropped to face the forest floor and his head snapped up and his unprotected face hit the wire.
“ Fuck, ” Peter swore vhemently as he twirled uncontrallbly before Steve grabbed his knees. He assessed his situation and spied Clint a metre above him on a branch. “This is actually better. I can web myself.”
“Be careful Pete,” Clint warned, seeing the blood begin to dribble down his stomach. He slung two webs to the branch above him and tested his tenacity. Feeling the webs take his weight like normal he hauled himself higher and felt the slack in the wire that fixed him to the trunk.
Peter stared up at Clint, “cut the wire.”
“ Parker I swear to God you better be careful.”
“Shut up Tony I’m busy,” Peter bit out but there was no heat to the remark,
“Kid, I’m not sure about this,” Clint cautioned but Peter hardened a glare.
“The webs will hold, I do this at hundreds of feet. If I fall, it’s not that high. Steve can catch me. But the webs will hold.”
Clint shook his head but prepared to cut the wires, when he saw Peter’s glistening and flushed face nod in readiness, he cut.
There was a split second of suspense, a gasp, a shout of pain, a jolt through his arms and finally a rush of air. He fell solidly into Steve’s braced arms.
Peter groaned at the reverb of falling into Steve’s arms and he was lowered to his feet. Clint landed heavily to his right clutching his face.
“Oh my god, Clint!” Steve exclaimed in surprise and Peter’s head snapped towards the archer. Red was blooming on his face heralding a welt that was soon to come.
“That like, a million times worse than being flicked with an elastic band,” he ground.
“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” Peter gushed. “I thought that the webs would hold but...the humidity oh my god.”
“We can deal with that later,” Steve decided, turning Peter back to face him. “I’m sorry kid, but I think you gotta get back to the jett. You’ve got a lotta blood and I’m worried about your neck.”
Peter tentatively touched a gloved hand to his neck and it came away slick with blood, he let out a shaky gasped and looked down at himself.
“Mhm.” It was a testament to how shaken he was that Peter didn’t try to keep on with the mission.
“What’s going on boys?” Nat’s voice rang out over the coms.
“Spidey’s going back to Brucie, we’re not overly worried but just playing it safe,” replied Clint. “I’ll take him back, you meet with the others. The undergrowth is too thick here for my arrows to be of much use. You guys carry on, I’ll be back up in case you need it.”
Steve nodded and smiled, “thanks Clint. Stay on the coms.”
They walked slowly and in companionable silence but Clint took a good look at Peter when they arrived at the quinjet. He was pale but flushed, sweat pooling across his skin.
“You okay Pete?” He halted and laid a hand on his shoulder.
Peter’s eyes were glassy, “just hurts. Hot, can’t self regulate.” Frown lines deepened on Clint’s forehead and he quickly guided Peter up the ramp.
-
Clint sat in the cockpit keeping half an eye on Peter and Bruce and the other half on the cameras. He listened to the coms as he heard his team mates battle, he wished he was there at moments to back up his team mates but so far none of them had got into a situation they couldn’t get out of.
Besides, he knew he had to be there for Peter. He was looking incredibly ill and after pulling back the suit they had got a good look at the injuries. Bruce had expertly clipped away the wire around his neck and cleaned the wounds. Peter’s face twisted at the stinging of the anti-bacterial solution.
“You had a tetanus booster recently Pete?” Bruce asked as he examined some of the deeper cuts. Peter opened his mouth and shut it, frowning at the floor. Clint glanced at Bruce over his shoulder. Having recently done the whole immunisation booster thing with his own kids he knew the importance of these things.
“To be honest,” Bruce muttered. “I need to have a look at your biochemistry. Booster shots might not work. I’ll contact Cho in a little bit. Jarvis, take a look and see if you can get Peter’s immunisation records?”
“Certainly.”
The physicist began to throw out the dirtied clothes and with his back turned Clint eyed Peter. He had paled further, sitting on the sterile bench looking down at the scattering of incisions across. They still oozed slightly, trickles of blood running across his sternum.
“Bruce-”
The olderman turned around just in time to see Peter slump forwards.
-
The team returned dirty but unharmed, the alien tech had been stored in the undercarriage. They had traipsed up the ramp and cast worried glances at Peter as they went to change out of their gear.
Tony sidled up to Clint in the cockpit, “how is he?”
The teenager was lying down, bandages strapping his torso and a few stitches across his neck.
“He passed out a little while ago, I think it was the blood. Bruce is a little worried about his tetanus booster so he’s calling Cho once we’re in the air. Kid didn’t look too good when we got here, something about how he’s hot and can’t self regulate. Sweating buckets.”
Tony frowned, “because of the mutation he can’t self regulate his body temperature. Usually it’s only when it’s cold…”
“What’s up?” Clint pressed when Towny trailed off.
“I dunno, maybe the humidity affects him the same way?”
Steve and Nat returned, the Captain brushed a hand through Peter’s hair and Nat surveyed his wounds. Peter, still with a sheen of sweat and eyes screwed up tight, peeled his eyes open when he fee’s Steve’s hand touch his hair.
“How’d it go?” He croaked. Steve stepped back to knee next to where Peter lay.
“It was good, no problems.You just think about resting up alright?” He couldn’t help but feel the heat radiating off Peter’s skin.
-
When the team finally touched down at the compound Peter was rushed into medical where Cho and her team were ready. Samples of the wire were taken for analysis for the toxin coating them. In the past few hours Peter’s temperature had risen steadily and he had succumbed to delirium.
The team quickly showered and reconvened at medical.
Bruce met them outside Peter’s room, “we have a match; it’s the same poison of Dendrobatidae, a poison dart frog. Poacher’s have been milking it and it is lethal but Peter’s immune system has been fighting it quite well, remarkably . He’s on oxygen and fluids, we will monitor him until his fever breaks and then move from there. We have to be thankful that it was Peter that got caught in that trap, if it was anyone else but him or Steve this would be a lot different.”
Tony sat up, “Clint you said his webs broke right?” The archer nodded and the mechanic snapped his hands. “It’s been bugging me since you said that, those webs are waterproof so humidity wouldn’t affect them. But the poison...if his shooters had come in contact with the poison it would have broken down the chemical makeup of the webs.”
“Point is,” Bruce assured the group. “He’s going to be okay. It’s scary and he’s not out of the woods yet but he is going to be okay.”
-
Peter awoke properly two days later to Steve by his bedside.
“ Ngh -fuck me I fought I wasn’t in the battle,” Peter croaked through half lidded eyes. Steve smiled, pouring a little water into a glass and plucking a straw for it.
“Here, this’ll help.”
Shakily Peter steadied the straw and watered his throat, soothing it.
“You gave us quite a scare Pete,” Steve said and the young hero’s face instantly fell.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Steve’s eyebrows shot up, “no, no . God Pete that’s not what I meant. We’re worried, sure but it isn’t your fault.”
He relaxed at that, suddenly worried during his fever dream he had forgotten what he had done wrong.
“Just don’t get poisoned by poisonous frogs next time.”
“I what-”