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It had been a casual offer, nothing more than that. An harmless suggestion, with no idea the extent of harm it would cause.
“Hey, kid, want dinner?” Tony had asked, holding out a brown bag with a wince. “I ordered this curry in and it just arrived. I’m not in the mood for eating it right now, figured I’d at least offer.”
Peter, who’d just arrived at the Tower, accepted the bag tentatively. He peered into it and breathed in the rich smells of curry. He glanced back to his mentor. “Are you sure? You did get it for you, and you could put it in the fridge?”
“I’ll just have something else, later,” Tony shrugged, turning back to his work and picking up the soldering iron. Peter grabbed a plate and decanted the portions of curry onto it, grinning as he realised it was decently spicy.
Tony continued soldering in silence as Peter ate, watching him work. They were busy working on something for Stark Industries, nothing with a crucial deadline, but something Pepper had asked Tony to look over when he got the time. The billionaire preferred to do that than work on the Avengers’ gear, at least.
When he was done, he put the plate on the workshop sink and teetered over to the desk to help out with the soldering. Peter lasted about ten minutes before he put a hand to his head. He was feeling—well, something wasn’t quite right, which was weird considering he’d felt perfectly fine before eating. He felt sick, and his stomach hurt, and he was just hot all over (but also cold, in the weird way you felt when you were ill, both hot and cold). He blinked and tried to push past it.
“Mr Stark,” Peter coughed, when there was a wave of dizziness five minutes later that he couldn’t ignore. “I think—I don’t…feel great.”
“You did eat your food quite quickly,” Tony peered at him, frowning. He wasn’t wrong—Peter had practically wolfed down the whole meal in one so he could get to work. And it had been so good that he hadn’t been able to resist it. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a bit hot?”
“No, I really—” Peter touched a hand to his forehead, giving some cool relief to the slowly-growing headache, too. He wobbled, balanced his other hand on the desk to catch himself before he fell, and Tony was immediately on his feet, there to catch him if needed.
“FRI?” Tony asked, concerned, his eyebrows knotted.
“Boss,” FRIDAY replied. “I am under reasonable belief that Peter has been poisoned.”
Oh. Huh, Peter thought.
“Poisoned?” Tony exclaimed, jerking around to stare at the ceiling where there was a camera. He paused, uncertain, then stared back at Peter for a moment. “As in…the food was bad, right, FRI? Like, food poisoning, stomach bug, etc?”
There was a momentary pause before FRIDAY broke the news. “I believe it is more the serious kind of poisoning, Boss.”
“Oh my god,” Tony closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Peter, I’m so sorry—”
“What the hell?” Peter commented to FRIDAY, disheartened. He ignored Tony’s apology. This was what being poisoned felt like? This? The slightly woozy, ill-like feeling, as if he’d gotten a very fast-onset fever? No immediate collapse, no convulsing on the floor, no being rushed to medbay, nothing frothing out of his mouth? Just some pathetic little fever?
“I’ll find out the root cause of this, I swear to you, Pete,” Tony assured him, misunderstanding completely. “We won’t let them get away with this, I promise you, I’m going to figure this out.”
“No, I’m not mad, I mean, what the hell, I’m disappointed,” Peter shook his head. “It’s not—I just feel like I’m sick. Like I have a bad cold. This isn’t—this isn’t even that bad.”
“Are you telling me,” Tony said slowly, staring at him. “That you’re upset not because you’ve been poisoned but because your reaction to it isn’t fatal enough for you?”
“Yes,” Peter nodded starkly, crossing his arms.
Tony just continued staring at him for a second, then said, “Right. We’re going to Medbay, now.”
“Mr Stark,” Peter complained, dragging out his surname, but went along in compliance. Tony’s eyes were set in a mixture of annoyance as he glared at the bag of food which had poisoned Peter and then switched to concern when he caught eyes with Peter.
Peter started shaking enough that Tony decided to carry him to Medbay instead of letting him walk, which was simply embarrassing. He wasn’t even convulsing, for christ’s sake. What kind of poison even was it? Pathetic attempt.
What Peter hadn’t considered was the impact of the spider bite and his enhanced abilities, and how that had simmered down his reaction to the substance. When they arrived at Medbay and had completed some tests, Dr Cho informed them that it was a poison that was fatal to normal humans, and that his superhealing had saved his life. It all became a lot less trivial, the smile slipping off Peter’s face.
They hadn’t been trying to hurt Tony, whoever had put poison in his food. They’d been trying to kill him. And the only thing that had stopped their plan from working had been the fact that Peter, not Tony, had eaten the food. Christ, Tony could have been killed just from ordering takeout. The shiver that went through Peter’s spine wasn’t anything to do with the poison.
When Cho told them both that, Tony went white, his eyes wide and hands panicked. He closed his eyes, looking almost as ill as Peter himself.
“He ate the food I bought,” Tony explained, clearly having the same realisation as Peter had had. “They must have—it was meant for me.”
It was good that Tony finally seemed to be having a self-preservation streak. Except-
“Such an idiot,” Tony muttered, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I never should’ve given it to him.”
Oh, no, he wasn’t concerned for his own welfare. He was beating himself up for the fact that Peter was affected at all. That was classic Tony. Well, at least he wasn’t proclaiming that he should have consumed the poison that would have killed him.
Peter opened his mouth to say something, but Dr Cho was there, the voice of reason.
“The initial signs of recovery are already there—” she told Tony softly, gesturing to Peter. It was true. He was already feeling better (again, shit poison, they really had to try harder). And Cho had kept him stocked up with fluids and protein bars so any time he went vaguely white, he just had more water and that made him feel ten times better.
“It should have been me,” Tony shook his head.
Oh, there it was.
Peter wanted to throw his hands up in the air and roll his eyes. The billionaire really had no respect for his own life at all. Peter’s reaction had been minimal. Tony really couldn’t be dramatic enough to wish that he himself would die over Peter getting minorly ill, surely?
“Tony, you’d be dead if you’d taken this,” Cho looked just as alarmed as Peter was sure he did, too. “Peter’s alive, and it wasn’t even bad for him, his reaction was like a fever.”
As he’d said. The voice of reason.
Tony didn’t seem to listen. He kept repeating, “It should have been me,” or vague variants of it, softly to himself, until Peter was completely recovered and the poison had gone from his system several hours later.
“God, kid, I’m so sorry,” Tony murmured when it was time to drive him home later that evening, still looking miserable. Dr Cho had given Peter the all clear, but Tony was still hovering around him as though he was going to collapse any second.
“It’s really not your fault, you know,” Peter swallowed. “Like, could have happened to anyone.”
Tony rolled his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was laced with spite that was actually just masked hurt. “Oh, yeah, because I bet if Ned’s parents gave you takeout they didn’t want, it’d be poisoned too.”
“Alright, maybe not everyone, but it was bound to happen to someone, right? In our line of work,” Peter shrugged. “And if you think about it, logically, isn’t it better that it was me rather than, say, Miss Potts? Mr Colonel Rhodes? Cause, you know, Dr Cho said it was fatal to normal humans.”
As Tony clearly had no sense of how much his own life was worth, Peter figured he could appeal to the other people he loved in his life, and apply it to that situation.
Tony’s resolve faltered for a split second, so Peter knew he’d won the point.
“I can admit that it is…luckier that it was you than them,” Tony clenched his jaw. “But I still would have preferred it to be me than any of you.”
It was a start, at least. Peter smiled up at him. “Well, I’m fine, you’re fine, we got the Stark Industries work mostly completed, poison ingested and conquered. Until next time—next time is Friday, right?”
“I’ll try not to seriously injure you on Friday,” Tony sighed, looking tired.
“Only with your bad puns,” Peter grinned as Tony looked offended. Happy pulled up the car, so Peter waved, gripping onto his backpack. “Bye, Mr Stark.”
Tony smiled too—the soft smile he never seemed to use intentionally. “Bye, kid. See ya later”