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"Next time, the kid is piloting the jet," Tony groaned as he pushed off a large piece of debris from where it had fell on top of him, instantly feeling the sting of free-flowing blood, "because what the actual fuck was that, Barton?"
"Okay, so I guess I'm a little rusty," Clint sighed as he walked over, holding his hand out for Tony to take, "I've tried to retire two, three times now and SHIELD continues to be a pain in my ass."
"Join the club of trying to leave a protege behind that they have no interest in," Tony scoffed before the realization hit him, "hey, Underoos, sound off."
"I-I'm here," the voice responded instantly as part of a wing fell to the grass below to reveal Peter, still laying on his back, "I'm gonna guess that didn't go as planned."
"Astute observation, Einstein," Tony remarked, walking over with a sharp zap of pain going up his spine before gripping his prosthetic around Peter's hand and pulling him to his feet, "all your blood is in your body?"
"Think so," Peter responded after a beat, the left eye of his suit sporting a crack across the lens, "but I'm taking the mask off, the damage is making me kind of dizzy."
With that, the mask came free, revealing the sweaty mop of overgrown hair and the sluggishly dripping blood coming down his face from his right nostril.
"Took a hit to the face, Pete," Tony insisted, waving a finger in front of his face, getting a "oh, shit" in response that allowed him to turn back to Clint, "what's the play, Legolas?"
"Well, we're gonna need cell signal to get SHIELD's attention, and we are currently in a no-service zone," he explained, shoving his phone into his pocket, "the good news is that there's a safe house about…six hundred yards from here."
"You would know where the safe house is while we're in the middle of nowhere," Tony sighed, his back twinging again at the thought of walking, but he was fully aware of how much damage his suit had taken in the process, so he turned back to Peter and did his best to muster up a grin, "feel up for a hike?"
…
"Alright, welcome to la casa de SHIELD," Clint announced as the door creaked loudly on rusty hinges, holding it open so both Tony and Peter could walk in.
"Pretty sure it's "la casa del escudo"."
"What?"
"You're butchering Spanish, Mr. Barton."
"Ignore him, he's being a smart ass," Tony waved him off before taking a few more steps inside, his eyes catching on the worn blue plaid on the couch and the waning floorboards beneath his feet, "well, this place is not nearly as charming as your farmhouse."
"Hey, it may not look the best, but this safe house has kept me safe many a time," Clint said, his fingers dancing lightly against the door frame and his eyes looking at though he was caught deep within a memory, "so her charm isn't from her looks."
"Yeah, does this place have any Tylenol?" Tony asked, his voice coming out sharper than intended, "like we said earlier, we're about three years past retirement and my back is insistent on me being aware of that fact."
"Let me go look." Clint said, clapping Peter on the shoulder as he turned the corner, allowing the nineteen year old to cross the threshold and take a seat on the couch.
Now that Tony was getting a good look at him, he really was looking worse for wear; the suit full of rips and shreds, his nose having clotted but not without smears of red on his face and on the front of his chest, and his eyes unfocused as they tried to stare ahead.
Add that to the trail of blood that had been following them since the plane wreckage, not knowing which one of them was the main source of it and safe to say, he was starting to wish that he had stood his ground when he had been called for this particular mission.
"Alright, Pete," Tony groaned as he sat next to Peter, keeping a hand on his back as he let his sink into the cushions, "mind if we do a bit of concussion protocol? To ease the mind of your beloved mentor who is way too old for this shit?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"Alright, let's do the easy one. Name, date of birth and current location."
"Peter Benjamin Parker, August tenth, 2001, really busted up SHIELD safe house with Clint Barton."
"Hit the nail on the head," Tony agreed before gently snapping his fingers, "turn to face me?" he waited until he did turn his head before gently holding out two fingers, slowly drawing an invisible "x" in the air.
Unsurprisingly, Peter struggled to follow which did confirm Tony's suspicions.
"Headache? Nausea? Dizziness?"
"Yep." Peter agreed, placing his head in his suit-clad hands, "the light is way too bright in here."
The light, which was coming from one bulb screwed in the ceiling that had to be turned on with a metal link of chain, was the final nail in the coffin.
"Yep, diagnosing with a concussion. I'd say it's probably on the milder side, but you know how Jolly Green feels whenever I try to diagnose you."
"'not even that kind of doctor."
"He's not even that kind of doctor! But I bring him on to synthesis your painkillers and all of a sudden, he's the "Peter Parker medical expert"," Tony complained, mostly to lighten the mood which must have worked at least a little, given the small laugh that came from Peter, "anything else particularly hurting?"
"Besides feeling like one big bruise?"
"Join the club, kid."
"Hey, I found the Tylenol," Clint said, tossing the bottle over to Tony and acting unsurprised when Peter's right hand shot up from where it was cupping his face and grabbed the bottle right before Tony could even react, "wow, you look worse for wear."
"Don't give that one Tylenol," Tony warned, shaking out two of the pills into his hand and swallowing them dry, "doesn't do jack shit on him and I already have to explain the concussion to his aunt."
"Duly noted," he said, passing him a couple of sealed antiseptic wipes, "for your nose, get some of that blood off your face."
"Oh, okay." Peter nodded after a moment, wincing as he stood and came from the same direction Clint had gone.
"Okay, I'm gonna step outside and give our details to SHIELD, but with how beat up the three of us are, it might be time to call in the cavalry."
Tony let out a long, exhausted sigh; he knew fully well that Clint didn't mean Fury, Hill, any of the other agents of SHIELD, SWORD or even the U.S military, but rather the one person who told him multiple times that he needed to tell SHIELD to shove it and commit fully to his superhero retirement.
But at the same time, with his back aching every time he sat up or walked, Clint's makeshift butterfly bandages across his face that looked like duct tape and Peter's concussion, he knew that he was right.
"Fine," he groaned, pulling his phone out of his pocket as the two bars of service taunted him, "but when my wife cusses me out over this, I am shifting the blame to you."
…
"So the plane really exploded?"
"Yeah, but that wasn't because of someone's reckless piloting," Tony said, making sure the bite in his words were directed at the appropriate party, who just flipped him off from his bed in a way that was angled away from Morgan's ever-curious eyes, "but because of the bad guys we were trying to stop."
"And that's why Peter has a headache?"
"Yeah," Tony nodded, deciding against explaining that the moderate concussion that Peter was still sporting as he laid asleep in the private room down the hall was not "just a headache" to his seven year old daughter and settled on, "if SHIELD ever asks you to do anything for them, you need to look them in the eyes and say "hell no". Got it?"
"Hell yeah." She grinned, a hand in her hair that made Pepper sigh as she walked in.
"I left for ten minutes and you're teaching her more swear words," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed which instantly made Morgan wiggle down and sprinting over to where Clint was, babbling about the "exploding plane" and said, "May's on her way here."
"Yeah, is she angry?"
"Less angry than I was," Pepper shrugged, reaching over to gently squeeze his left hand, her gaze lingering on the monitor for a beat too long for Tony's comfort, "no more scaring me?"
"No," Tony insisted, pressing a kiss to her lips as he tried to forget the last time they had been like this, that awful coma and feeling like something was just wrong even though he was on enough morphine to feel more like he was weightless only to realize that his arm was gone-, "I'm done. With SHIELD, with Iron Man, with all of it."
"Not the kid though, right?" Pepper asked with a gentle raise of an eyebrow before shrugging, "because if he hadn't grown on the both of us, he sure has grown on Morgan."
"Never the kid," Tony agreed, pressing a second, quicker kiss to her lips before adding, "that just means you'll be stressed by proxy though."
"I'm okay with that."
"Me too."
"Helps that he's about thirty years younger than you," Clint remarked with Morgan balanced on his lap which had Tony sitting up fully to point a finger at him.
"Barton, shut the hell up."