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Tony was having a good day.
He was currently underneath of his project car in his personal workshop that he liked to tinker with when he had a moment. It was just after the school day would have ended and Tony was waiting for Peter to make his way over so they could do some science and engineering. Based on his usual pattern, Tony expected Peter to be arriving in the next 5 to 20 minutes – counting for if Peter decided to stop to pet a fluffy dog or take a moment to talk with Linda the receptionist that always slipped him a lollipop.
Like he knew Tony was thinking about him, Friday announced that Peter was calling him. Tony slid out from underneath of the car and sat up, wiping his hands on a rag to rid them of oil and grease. Friday took that as her cue to answer the phone and connected the call.
“Kid?” Tony said into the air of the workshop, pushing himself to his feet with a groan as his back popped. He padded over to his desk and plopped down in the chair. “What’s going on?”
“Hey, Mr. Stark!” Peter chirped into the phone; chipper as usual. “I need your help.”
Tony furrowed his brow. “Help like what? You shot?” Tony leaned back and pulled up his display to look at the tracker he had in Peter’s phone. It showed him in the lobby of Stark Tower which confused Tony even more.
“Not this time,” Peter snickered into the phone, making Tony’s face fall in a flat stare of disappointment at how Peter thought the numerous times he’s been shot was funny.
Tony leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling of his workshop. “Then what’s up? I can see that you are in the lobby. It would probably be easier to help you if you just come up to the workshop and we can talk in person.”
“That’s the problem…” Peter trailed off, making Tony sit back up.
“What’s going on?” Tony asked.
“I need you to come pick me up since they are definitely not going to let me up there,” Peter said with a snicker at the end.
That confused Tony even more. “Why not? I gave you the second high level clearance badge so that you can go wherever in the tower whenever you want. If they are giving you shit about it, I can definitely come down and scare the threat of their job security into them.”
“Well—wait, I have the second highest?” Peter asked as he caught onto that. “Who has the highest?”
“Me and Pep, duh,” Tony rolled his eyes.
“I want to have the highest level,” Peter pouted.
“Not happening,” Tony laughed. “When I turn the company over to you, maybe, but I will probably just go ahead and make a secret level that is higher so I can always override your stupid ideas.”
“Aww, Mr. Stark, that’s not fair,” Peter groaned. “Wait, what do you mean ‘turning the company over to me’?”
“Them’s the rules,” Tony said back to his protégé with a groaning grin, glossing over the fact that Peter was the heir to Stark Industries even if he didn’t know it exactly yet. “Don’t like it? Well, tough nibs.”
“This is going to be the start of my villain origin story,” Peter grumbled into the phone. “Just you watch. I’ll become the worst villain to terrorize the city and it’ll be all your fault.”
“I am quivering in my boots,” Tony said with a flat voice as he tried to suppress his laughter. “We are getting off-topic,” Tony said as he realized. “Can we go back to why you can’t come upstairs?”
“That’s because I can’t do metal detectors,” Peter said quietly and it sounded like he was cupping his hand around the bottom of the phone.
“Why? You got some type of freaky metal spider powers that you haven’t told me about yet?” Tony asked with a teasing lithe.
“No, I don’t have any freaky metal spider powers – though that would be hella cool,” Peter whispered into the phone.
“Then enlighten me what is the problem with metal detectors all of a sudden?” Tony snickered lightly. “Because I have definitely seen you go through one before with no problems.”
“Oh, that would be because then they would see that I have bullets in me,” Peter supplied helpfully. “And they would ask waaaaaay too many questions about that.”
Tony felt his good mood come to a screeching halt. “Ex-fucking-cuse me?”
“The bullets,” Peter reiterated. “Do we need to get your hearing checked? May says that you shouldn’t use Q-Tips as they push the ear wax farther in and—”
“I heard you the first time,” Tony interrupted. “I am stuck at the fact that you have a bullet stuck in your body right now.”
“It’s actually bullets,” Peter corrected, making Tony feel himself going pale. “As in multiple. More than one.”
“I know what multiple means,” Tony sighed harshly with one of his hands slapping his forehead. “What I am so confused about it why you have multiple bullets currently inside of your body.”
“Well, you know, sometimes when I’m on patrol and I get shot and it doesn’t go all the way through, it just sits in my body,” Peter started explaining and Tony could feel his blood pressure rising with every word. “If it’s too early in patrol, I just keep on going and by the time I get back home, the wound is, like, closed up after the bullet hole, and it feels like too much trouble to get it out – so I just let it sit there. So, I’ve got a whole bunch of bullets in my body.”
“Jesus christ kid!” Tony exclaimed and shot over to his computer, pressing a button on the holographic keyboard to pull up the live feed of his lobby. If he didn’t visual confirmation of Peter’s state at the moment, he might have a heart attack right then and there out of worry.
Peter pulled the phone away from his ear at the volume with a grimace on the live feed before bringing it back to his face, the security guard watching with a raised eyebrow. “Mr. Stark, are you mad at me?” Peter asked in a surprised tone.
“Yes!” Tony exclaimed with his hands being thrown into the air. “And very disappointed! I thought your aunt and I were very clear about you coming to me when you are shot?!”
“No, of course, Mr. Stark, I always go to you if I get shot,” Peter said before pausing. “…if I get shot in a vital organ.”
“Peter,” Tony said, inhaling sharply as he tried to reign in his anger in. “I am going to ask you right now, what do you consider a vital organ?”
It was quiet on the other end of the phone and Tony could see Peter actively thinking on the camera. “Mr. Stark, you know what’s funny, I did not consider before this moment what I thought a vital organ is. Hey, hang on for a second, I’ll ask the security guy.”
“Peter!” Tony said but Peter already pulled the phone away from his ear to talk to the security guard.
“Hey, random question,” Peter said to the guard with Tony hearing it. “What do you consider a vital organ?” The response was too quiet for Tony to hear but he did hear Peter’s dumbfounded burst of laughter. “Really? Okay.” There was a shuffle as Peter brought the phone back to his ear. “Well, he said all of them, so, so much for this guy, am I right?”
“Peter, if you don’t consider all of your organs to be vital, then what has to be shot for you to consider it bad?” Tony asked. His heart was beating fast as his kid’s stupidly was going to send him to an early grave if Peter kept up his current antics.
“I don’t know, the heart or something?” Peter answered with a flippant shrug on the camera. “I could tell you what I don’t think is a vital organ.”
“Pray tell me, my idiotic protégé, what are the non-vital organs?” Tony asked with an exasperated sigh. With his hands flying across his keyboard, he sent a message up to the med bay to have Dr. Cho and her team prepare for last minute surgery for his stupid superpowered teenager.
“The ones that have bullets in them,” Peter snickered quietly on the phone. On the camera feed, Peter looked all too smug with his answer and the security guard leaned away from Peter at his expression.
Tony’s hands froze on the keyboard before he brought them up to bury his face in, letting out a deeply disappointed sigh that echoed around his workshop.
“Do you think a spleen is a vital organ?” Peter asked into the phone when Tony didn’t say anything. “Cuz I’m got, like, three bullets in there right now. I could probably fit four in if we’re trying.”
“No! We are not trying for that!” Tony yelled up at the ceiling, wondering how this conversation could one be he was seriously having with someone as smart as Peter.
“Not that I would try,” Peter said as he tried backpedaling. “Unless, do you think Dr. Banner wants to try? Then I would totally let him try.”
“Peter, I’m going to ground you until you’re 80 if you try to get another bullet in your spleen,” Tony threatened instantly.
“Mr. Stark! You can’t get mad at me! It’s for science!” Peter whined.
“I can’t with you,” Tony sighed harshly, dragging a hand down his face. “How are you so, so smart and so, so stupid?”
“Soooooo…are you coming down to get me Mr. Stark? Because if I go through your metal detector right now, it will literally light up like a Christmas tree,” Peter mumbled into the phone.
Tony smacked a hand to his face hard at that. Because, god dammit, his kid was going to kill him one of these days. Peter was going to give him a heart attack and not think twice about it because apparently having an ungodly number of bullets in him – and ungodly meaning more than one – wasn’t anything of concern.
“Peter, how many bullet are in you at this very moment?” Tony asked point blank.
It went quiet on the other end of the line and Tony could see Peter in the lobby’s camera feed counting on his fingers. The security guard was looking at him with a furrowed brow as if the kid was crazy. Tony was about to scream when Peter got onto his second hand for counting.
“I wanna say…like 8,” Peter said confidently.
Tony inhaled very sharply at that answer. “Peter, I am coming to get you right now and if you are anywhere other than the lobby, I will launch a city-wide manhunt for you.”
“Why I would I go anywhere?” Peter laughed. “That would defeat the purpose of asking you to come down and get me.”
Tony hung up on Peter, not even bothering to snap back at his dumbass kid that thought it was okay to carry on with like after being shot multiple times with the bullets still inside him. With fists curling at his sides, Tony stalked over to the elevator that Friday already opened for him. As soon as he was standing in the middle and turning around to face the door, Friday was closing it and lowering the elevator all the way down to the ground floor of his building.
On the way, Tony sent a message to May to let her know that her nephew is a dumbass and is going to be going into emergency surgery shortly. All she sent back was a disappointed emoji and that she would be there as soon as she could. The elevator dinged as it reached the ground level and the doors opened to show Tony a view of the lobby.
Peter was still on the other side of the metal detectors with his hands flying in the air as he regaled the security guard with something. “And that’s how I stuck an entire pencil up my nose,” Peter said to the security guard that was looking visibly pale.
“And this pencil was sharpened?” the guard gasped in shock and disgust.
“Oh yeah,” Peter grinned with a nod. “Why would you have a dull pencil?” Tony could see the security turn an uneasy shade of green.
“Parker!” Tony yelled across the lobby to spare his security guard losing his lunch by whatever out-of-left-field story Peter had for him. His kid had the strange talent of telling the most startling story without any prompting that had Tony shivering in either shock, fear, or disgust – sometimes all three.
“That’s my cue,” Peter grinned and gave the guard a two-fingered salute. “Bye Jose. Next time, I’ll tell you about the time I got dared to eat a container of cinnamon and then spent the next week farting it out.”
“Oh, joy,” the guard – who Peter somehow knew the name of, which Tony fully expected from someone as personable as Peter – said with a grimace.
Peter trotted away from Jose and hopped over the short wall on the side of the metal detector. Jose was going to say something when Tony held up a hand to tell him it was okay. Still perturbed by whatever story Peter had told him in the time it took Tony to come do wn to the lobby, Jose nodded and went back to his work.
“Hi Mr. Stark,” Peter chirped happily as he skipped into the elevator. He was the picture of childhood innocence.
“Don’t ‘hey Mr. Stark’ me,” Tony scolded with a finger pointed at Peter. Friday closed the elevator again and made it rise back up the tower. “You are in big trouble.”
“Awww,” Peter pouted and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Don’t you dare,” Tony tutted at Peter. “You have eight bullets in you. That is eight more than I am comfortable with.”
“I feel like four is an okay number,” Peter chirped, shifting from his heel to the balls of his feet.
“No,” Tony deadpanned. “Not at all.”
“Whelp,” Peter shrugged with a shit-eating grin. “Can’t win them all.” He looked up at the number displayed on the side panel when the elevator dinged, frowning when he saw the med bay number. “What are we doing at the med bay?” Peter asked.
“What are we—why do you think?!” Tony sputtered, gesturing to Peter’s stomach area. “You have eight bullets in you! We have to remove them!”
“Aww man,” Peter pouted and kicked invisible dust in front of him. “I did not see my Tuesday going this way.”
“Neither did I,” Tony grumbled and placed a hand in the middle of Peter’s back to march him forward. “But then again, I should start expecting it when you’re such a dumbass.”
“Hey,” Peter said in complaint at the name. “I had to go stop crime. I couldn’t let one little bullet stop me.”
“But you don’t have one,” Tony argued. “You have eight. Eight. Am I stressing enough that it isn’t okay to have eight bullets in you and continue on your day?”
“Well…”
“You were over two nights ago,” Tony said as he remembered something. “And you went through the metal detector then just fine.”
“That’s because I got shot immediately after leaving here three times and five times yesterday,” Peter explained with a roll of his eyes. He waved at Susan the nurse manning the front that day and she gave him an exasperated shake of her head as she updated the counter ‘how many days since Spider-Man got shot’ from 37 to 0.
“How the hell did you get shot 8 times in less than 48 hours?” Tony gasped.
Peter shrugged. “I guess I’m a very popular guy, Mr. Stark.”
“Unlucky is the word I would use,” Tony grumbled.
“Peter!” Dr. Cho called for the teenager as she came trotting out of her office. “What is this I hear about you leaving eight bullets in you?!”
“Ahh, Dr. Cho, well, you see…” Peter stammered as Dr. Cho stared him down as she dared him silently to lie to her face as the person in charge of his health. His shoulders slumped as he couldn’t find the words and looked off to the side. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing.”
Dr. Cho sighed harshly and pinched her nose bridge. “Does your aunt know yet?”
“I already texted her,” Tony answered, clapping a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Should be here as soon as the hospital will let her go.”
“I wish she would just take up my offer to have her work here,” Dr. Cho said. Clearing her throat, Dr. Cho pulled the sides of her doctor’s coat to straighten it and turned on her heel. “Peter, go get changed into a gown and come meet me for x-rays. I have to find out exactly where the bullets are that I am removing.”
“Can’t we just leave them in there?” Peter grimaced and shrunk underneath the heated gazes of both Dr. Cho and Tony. “I mean, it would be so much effort.”
“…I am going to pretend I didn’t just hear Peter say he would rather have us leave bullets in his body,” Dr. Cho said and turned on her heel to head to the back to gather her team.
Peter watched her go and threw his head back to groan. “Ugh, this sucks.”
“It’s what happens when you get shot so much and tell no one,” Tony said, squeezing the hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Kid, please, no more,” Tony begged and looked Peter in the eye. “You have to call one of us when something like this happens. You are seriously lucky that you didn’t die from this. My heart can’t take it. You know I have a bad heart.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter apologized and had the decency to actually look sorry. “I didn’t mean to make you worry so much.”
Tony sighed and pulled Peter in for a side hug. “Call me the next time you are shot – anywhere – okay?”
“Okay, Mr. Stark,” Peter agreed with a nod, hugging Tony back.
“What have I said about calling me Tony?” Tony snorted and roughly ran his hand through Peter’s hair to mess it up. “C’mon, say my name. You already do for Pep.”
“Okay, Mr. Stark,” Peter said with a smirk and a wrinkle of his nose.
Tony snorted breathily and gently pushed Peter’s head. Peter went along with the movement, cackling the whole way before stepping away from Tony. “You’re a little shit, you know that, right?”
“It’s like an established fact,” Peter snickered. “Though, I usually hear a lot more colorful words with it from my bad guys.”
Tony rolled his eyes and stuck his hands in his pockets as he followed Peter through the med bay. “Oh, I know. I watch the recordings of your patrols.”
“Ugh, I forgot about that,” Peter scowled with his tongue sticking out.
“I have Friday and Karen send me the summarized version without all the swinging,” Tony said. “Watching that and you flipping through the air makes me queasy.”
“Then how did you not know about all the times I got shot in the last two days?” Peter asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Big update on the server,” Tony shrugged. “Guess I forgot to check if the automatic alerts for you getting injured were still up. I’ll have to go back and watch the footage while you are in surgery.”
“Well, I guess you don’t need me to tell you about how I got stabbed in the thigh last night and that part of the blade is still in my leg,” Peter said brightly as he pushed his way through the double doors leading to the back of the med bay used for surgery.
Tony felt himself coming to a stop at the news. His mouth opened and closed like a fish as he tried to process it. When the doors slammed shut, it jolted Tony out of his thoughts and he went running after Peter.
“The WHAT?!”