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Peter is not made for the cold.
Ever since he was young, it just wasn’t something that clicked with him. Of course, there were some awesome things about winter, like Christmas and May’s (quite frankly godly) hot chocolate. But the best parts of winter were the things he could do inside. Not outside.
And especially not in ten-degree weather.
God, he hates the cold, because look where he is now.
Shivering, stripped down to his underwear in a dark alley, and hiding behind a dumpster as he struggles to get his Spider-Man suit on.
Okay. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to change into his suit in an alleyway in the middle of winter, but it’s routine at this point! He always goes patrolling right after school. To wait until he got home would take an hour away from being Spider-Man. What if someone needs him?
He finally finds his suit (buried in the bottom of his backpack, because of course it is. Internally, he curses Past Peter for being an idiot) and shoves it on, fumbling to get the mask over his head with numb fingers.
“Karen, give me some heat,” he says in lieu of his normal greeting. Instantly, the heater turns on, and he’s enveloped in warmth. Peter lets out a satisfied hum. “Thanks.”
“Of course, Peter,” Karen replies, the gentle, automated female voice as comforting as usual. “Anything else I can help you with?”
“Nope, but thanks for asking. Let’s get patrolling,” Peter says, zipping up his backpack eagerly. “Bad guys aren’t gonna stop because it’s chilly, and neither will we!”
Instantly, he activates his web shooters and hurls himself up to the top of the nearest building, gazing out at the city below him. He cracks his knuckles and smiles. “This is the best part of my day.”
Then he jumps off the building and swings into the streets.
Meeting people is one of the best parts of what he does. Peter won’t really call himself an extravert, but with the mask on, he basks in the attention. One particular dude with a Yankees cap smiles, waving his halal as he hollers out a “wassup, Spider-Man!”
Peter salutes the man before moving on. The wind sings in his ears, his blood is pumping, and he’s home. Home is the city, even in parts less-traveled. He’s here to protect his place.
After a few productive hours, he has helped three old ladies cross the street, rescued one particularly feral cat, and returned a lost phone to its owner. Then, deserving of a break, he hops on top of the Empire State Building to relax for a bit and sits on the edge, kicking his legs.
“You did well today, Peter,” says Karen.
He smiles. “Thanks, Karen. Couldn’t have done it all without you.” He pauses, then asks, “what time is it?”
“7:02 PM.”
“Maybe it’s time to call it a night,” Peter says contemplatively. “May’s probably gonna want to see me before she starts her late shift.”
“Based on past experiences, you are probably corr — Peter, I have detected an incident occurring near east 84th street.”
Peter activates his web shooters. “On it. Send me a location,” he says, and follows Karen’s directions to where the action is happening.
He doesn’t really know what to expect when he arrives, but it’s not two masked men next to an unconscious lady. Peter can’t really see well at first, but he sees one man holding a purple baseball bat and the other, rather short man rifling through a purse and puts the pieces together.
“Are you guys really stealing from a random woman?” He says, making his presence clear. “So not cool, man. Like, a negative five out of 10.”
The man with the baseball bat advances closer to where Peter’s perched on the wall. “Go away, kid,” he says in what’s probably supposed to be a menacing tone. “This doesn’t involve you.”
“Right, I’m gonna call you Barney,” Peter decides, pointing to the baseball bat dude. “And your other friend can be Dobby.” He hops down to face the two thieves. “I’m gonna only ask you once, so listen up: put down the bat and the purse and get out of here.”
“You shouldn’t have done this, kid,” Dobby growls at him, and the fight commences.
It’s not that difficult to deal with two thieves, really, and Peter says so. “You guys should be doing other things,” he says conversationally as he kicks Dobby into a garbage can, “than stealing. Like seriously—” he aims a punch at Barney, who sidesteps it and slams a fist into Peter’s stomach— “ow, man,” he complains. “That hurt!”
“Do you ever just shut up,” Barney says, sounding extremely aggravated as he aims a fist at Peter’s face.
“Not really,” Peter says as he dodges the fist. He sends a well-aimed kick back at him, sending Barney flying into a wall, rendering the man unconscious. Smiling, he wipes his hands. “That was pretty easy—”
Someone tackles him from behind and Peter falls onto the ground with a thud. He thrashes around, comes face-to-face with Dobby, and groans. “Aw, man, I thought I got rid of you already!”
The man doesn’t seem quite interested in talking to him as he does bashing his brains out, but Peter evades the punches, trying to get the man off of his suit.
Dobby clings on, though, and scratches the spider on his chest. He succeeds in tearing a piece of the spider off, and instantly, the heating factor is gone.
All Peter can think of is: damn it.
“Alert: damage to the suit,” Karen says. “Internal heating system deactivated.”
Peter pushes himself to his feet. The cold is starting to sink in. “Yeah, I figured!” He turns to face Dobby. “That was rude, man,” he whines, and then uses one punch to knock him unconscious.
Peter takes a quick minute to web up Barney and Dobby, call 911 for the lady, and then leaves. He’s getting colder by the second, and five minutes in, he’s absolutely freezing. Without the heating factor, it’s as if Peter’s in a thin onesie in ten-degree weather. And the temperature is only dropping from there.
But, strangely, the cold isn’t his biggest worry. In fact, though he can process himself trembling from the chill, he can’t really feel anything right now except a fatigue that settles deep in his bones.
Peter’s tired. So, so tired. So he drags himself into another random alley and curls himself into a ball, just for a moment. He wants to rest his eyes for a second.
“Peter, your internal temperature is dropping fast. You need to get home.”
“Later, Karen,” he mumbles, eyelids drooping shut. “Want… sleep…”
Maybe it’s just his imagination, but Peter thinks he hears an undercurrent of concern coming from his AI. “Peter, it’s eight degrees outside. You need to get home.”
He mumbles something incoherent, snuggling into his arms. He just needs to sleep. He’s tired.
“Peter, your heart rate appears to be slowing, and your core temperature is dangerously low. These are unsafe conditions. Initiating: Baby Monitor Protocol. Calling: Tony Stark.”
Under any other circumstances, Peter thinks that he would feel a sense of anger or frustration from that. As is, though, he doesn’t give a damn as to who Karen calls. He’s just irritated that her voice is keeping him awake. He just wants to sleep.
“Hey, Peter — Peter, you there?”
Hey, that voice sounds like Mr. Stark.
“Peter, can you hear me?”
“‘i, Mr. St’rk,” he thinks he says.
“Peter, kiddo, you gotta stay awake and alert for me, okay? What’s going on?” Mr. Stark’s voice sounds almost… frantic? But that can’t be right. Either way, Peter’s too sleepy to really care.
“T’red,” he slurs. “Wan’ sleep.”
“Absolutely not, you have to stay awake,” Peter thinks he hears Mr. Stark say. But it takes too much energy to concentrate, and so Mr. Stark’s words fade out. “I’m on my way, okay? Peter? Peter—”
“T’red,” he thinks he mumbles again. He blinks once, twice, and then a third time. This time, he’s too tired to open them back up again, no matter what the tiny voice is telling him.
The darkness takes over.
Peter wakes up slowly to a murmur of voices nearby.
“Tony, you can’t just move him and May to the Caribbeans.”
“Why not? Just watch me, Happy. I’m a billionaire. I can do anything I want.”
A sigh. “Tony…”
It’s warm. Really warm. Peter lets out a contented little sigh and snuggles deeper into the blankets.
“Did he just move?”
He can sense someone approaching him nearby. “Hey, kid, are you awake?” A hand lightly touches his shoulder and taps him twice. “Kid?”
Slowly, Peter shifts a little in bed and hums a bit in confirmation.
“Oh, thank God,” someone says.
Peter opens his eyes to see Mr. Stark, with bags under his eyes, sitting on his bed. He feels warm, and the weight of what feels like seven blankets on top of him is a comforting one.
“Why are you on my bed?” Peter asks him blearily.
Mr. Stark snorts. “Kid, this is my bed.”
Peter blinks. He pulls his arms out from underneath the blankets where he was cocooned and takes a moment to wipe at his eyes. The motion brings everything into focus, and he can see quite clearly where he is.
Which the Avengers Compound, because of course it is.
“Oh,” he says, looking around. He feels kind of awkward right now and flounders to find something to say. “It’s big.”
There’s a small, stifled laugh to the side, and Peter twists in the sheets to see Happy, who’s standing only three feet away. He gives a nod to him in acknowledgement. “Hey, kid. Good to see you’re okay.”
The fact that Happy, someone who doesn’t usually seem pleased to see Peter at all, is here in front of him, is a strange sight to behold.
“What… what happened?” His voice is hoarse.
“Your suit broke a little bit,” Mr. Stark says. “Heating factor got disabled. Here’s a fun fact, kid. Did you know that spiders don’t thermoregulate?”
“Uh…”
“Oh, and here’s an even better one! Did you know that some spiders hibernate in the winter?”
Peter’s not an idiot. He takes those two statements and puts them together and groans, closing his eyes in despair. “Don’t tell me I—”
“You sure did, kid.” Mr. Stark sounds like he’s trying to hold back a chuckle. “Your body got so cold that the spidey part took over and assumed it was nap time.”
“Oh my god.”
Peter kind of wishes that the Earth could swallow him up in this moment so he doesn’t face to face Mr. Stark. He’s not, in the slightest, dramatic at all.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark—”
“It’s fine,” the billionaire says, waving the apology away as if it means nothing. “I found you just in time and brought you back here. No harm, no foul.”
God. Does that mean Peter was carried by Mr. Stark all the way to the compound?
He lets out a pitiful whine and buries his head back into the blankets. He can feel the heat in his cheeks.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It wasn’t that bad, honestly,” Happy pipes in. “It was actually kind of cute, to be honest.”
That makes it even worse.
He lets out an unintelligible groan and hears Mr. Stark laugh in front of him. “It’s fine, kid. We got you here safe and sound. We know about this now, and that’s all that matters.”
Peter lifts his head out from the burrow of blankets to ask: “how long was I asleep?”
“Over a day and a half,” Mr. Stark says lightly, but Peter can hear the worry in his voice running underneath.
“Over a day?” Oh, god. Oh no, oh no no no. He makes an effort to stand, but his vision goes all dizzy. “I need to call Aunt May—”
“Woah, there, Peter!” Mr. Stark interjects, lowering Peter gently back into the bed. “Don’t worry about that. We already contacted May, alright? She knows. And we told the school you were going to be out sick, so. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, kid.” Mr. Stark grins up at him. “So just… stay in bed for a little while longer, okay? You were outside for over twenty minutes in really cold conditions with the lightest layers possible. We’re trying to make sure you don’t catch a cold, or the flu.”
“I don’t get sick,” Peter says, although he does get comfortable in the bed again. “Enhanced healing powers, remember?”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather not test that. At least for the rest of the day, just stay in bed, okay? We’ll reassess tomorrow.”
Peter huffs, but he knows a lost argument when he sees one. “Fine, okay.”
“Good.” Mr. Stark rises from the bed. “We’ll be letting you sleep, then. If you need anything, tell FRIDAY, and she’ll contact me, capiche?”
Peter smiles. “Yeah.”
Mr. Stark ruffles his hair. “Glad that’s all settled. Get some rest.” With that, he leaves the room, Happy on his tail.
Peter settles into the blankets, getting himself into a more comfortable position. He stares up at the ceiling for a moment until he gets bored again, then looks out the window to see—
All of New York City covered in snow. And it’s not even the pretty, pure-white kind. It’s the brown, mushy type of snow. It’s the kind that mixes with mud and dirt and other gross stuff that makes New Yorkers’ lives difficult.
Peter groans.
“I hate the cold.”