Work Text:
It started with a boy in a black and red suit swinging through the sky. The world around him bobbed as he spun on chemically created webs, and his hand swung into the picture as he waved at a pedestrian. The few trees in the city were green with buds, and plants were frequently visited by bees, which bounced from flower to flower, pollinating them. And that was his downfall, literally.
The video jerked quickly, the image on the screen shaking down then up violently, and then it kept going up, and pretty soon it was just pointed straight up as the boy in the spider suit fell from the sky, a few buildings around him entering his falling field of vision before the image stopped, bounced a bit more, and then twisted as Spider Man rolled off the dumpster he had luckily landed on.
Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and, recently, mentor to one Spider Man, held his hand over the lower half of his face, and breathed out. Then, pausing the video recording and glancing to his left, he met eyes with Spider Man himself, who sat in the rolly chair beside him, hands clasped in his lap and face towards the ground.
"Do you wanna tell me what happened?" The man finally asked, loosely clasping his own hands in his lap as he turned to face his mentee fully. "'cause, if you ask me, it looks like Spider Boy here was being reckless, spinning around in the air or something, and fell, almost dying, and severely bruising a few of his ribs." His face and voice were stern, and Peter could only glance at him briefly before turning away.
"They'll be healed by tomorrow, anyway," he muttered, "I don't see what the big deal is. Can you just let it go?"
"Not a big deal?" Tony asked incredulously. "You want me to let this go? You could have died, or been more severely injured, or hurt someone else when you fell! Heck, I don't even care that they'll heal quickly, you shouldn't have been hurt in the first place! Now, it doesn't exactly look like you were flipping in the air or anything crazy like that, but as I don't have audio, since a certain spider baby wanted me to respect his privacy as much as I could, I don't have much to work with here."
"I wasn't flipping, and 'm not a baby," was the dejected response he got.
"Fine, Spider Kid, if you weren't flipping, then what happened?"
Ignoring the jab at his age again, the third one, he noted, Peter hesitated, then decided that Tony would find out anyway, or badger Peter until the teen told him. So, slumping his shoulders, he said, "It was a sneeze."
"I'm sorry, what?" Tony asked, cupping his hand behind his head and looking directly at Peter. "Did you say a sneeze?"
"Yes, I sneezed, and lost my grip on my web, and so I fell." Peter hunched his shoulders up around his ear, glancing at Tony once again, and seeing the shocked look on his face.
"A sneeze has never made you fall before, buddy, you gotta help me out here," Tony said patiently, and Peter appreciated the effort he was putting in to understand it. Tony Stark was not known for his patience.
"It's just…" he glanced again at Tony, but still couldn't keep his gaze, "It's 'cause it's spring. There's a lot of pollen in the air, and I'm…allergic."
"You're…allergic…to pollen?" Tony asked brokenly, an incredulous look in his blown-wide eyes. "Why did I not know this before?"
"It wasn't really important," Peter said, finally gaining the courage to meet Tony's gaze and hold it. He wished with all his heart that the man would let it go, and he hoped his eyes conveyed that message. It seemed like his hopes would not come to fruition, however.
"You didn't think it was important, huh? Is that why we're sitting here, with bandages wrapped around your ribs, with a paused video showing you falling fifty feet out of the sky after sneezing? Because it's not important?!"
"Yes! It wasn't important, cause it hasn't been a problem up 'till now! Normally there isn't pollen that far up in the air, or enough to really affect me enough to make me fall. I must have passed a window sill with some flowers on it or something, I don't know. But seriously, it's not a problem, it's hardly relevant, we don't need to be discussing it at all, actually." Peter tried to stand up from his chair, planning to walk out, but stopped and sat back down when Tony raised a hand in the universal sign for "stop", and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
"Pete, why didn't you tell me about this?" Tony asked, lowering his hand and looking straight at Peter, who gulped and nervously rubbed his arm, glancing to the side.
"Well, I didn't want you to, uh…I didn't want you to think I'm weak!" He finally stammered out, saying it all quickly before he could stop himself.
Tony just blinked at him a couple times, then did a double take. "You thought I would think you're weak?! You, who took on dealers in alien weapons, alone? Who faced some of the Avengers in Germany, without any official training? There is no way I would think you're weak for having allergies. A lot of people have them, I have some myself."
Peter nodded, biting his lip. "It's just, when I got bitten by that spider, it cured so many things. I don't need glasses anymore, and I haven't had an asthma attack since. It just seems…stupid that I still have an allergy to pollen of all things."
Tony sighed, then stood from his chair and stepped over to Peter, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Peter, I'm not going to think less of you for something like this. Or anything else, probably. I have no doubt you'd have a hard time finding something about you, or doing something, that could make me think less of you. I care about you, kid, and an allergy to pollen isn't going to change that."
Peter smiled up at him, and Tony smiled back, shocking even himself sometimes at how soft he was with this kid.
Clapping his hand once more on Peter's shoulder then stepping back, Tony continued, "But, we do need to find a way to make sure this doesn't happen in the future. Maybe we could put a filter system into your mask which wouldn't let pollen through." He started walking towards the other side of the room where their work station was, video forgotten, and back to his usual, carefree self.
Peter hopped off his seat and followed the man. "Sure," he said quietly, a smile playing about his lips. "And thanks."
"No problem, kid. Wouldn't want you dying of a sneeze, after all. Wouldn't look good on me as your mentor, you know. Not to mention what your aunt would do to me if I let that happen. Or Pepper, for that matter. Too many scary women in our lives to let you die, without me dying alongside you." Tony didn't look away from his holograms, but Peter could see the slight, upward twitch of his lips.
Peter should have known better than to think Tony was that shallow, but he had been scared, all the same. It was reassuring to know that his mentor had his back, and even cared about him, it made him feel all fuzzy and warm inside.
Pushing those thoughts away, the teen joined Tony at his desk, offering suggestions for how the filter could work, with Tony nodding along to his mentee as they worked, together. As a team, always.