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Tony has seen a lot of blood in his life.
He has seen clusters of deep crimson decorating the battlefield, ruby streaks standing out on his TV screen, even an array of scarlet on his own hands.
But standing here, in the ruined debris of what used to be Park Avenue mere hours ago, Tony doesn’t think he has ever seen this much blood. Maybe he has. Maybe the rapidly growing pool on the dirty ground is miniscule, in the grand scheme of things, but the knowledge that it is Peter’s blood is what makes his stomach turn.
“Kid.” Tony breathes in horror, surveying Peter’s crumpled form. He is rooted in place, heart thrumming wildly against his chest. He needs to help the kid, needs to dig around his neck until he finds a steady pulse, but he can’t bring himself to move. The logical need to ensure that Peter is okay is outweighed by his instinctual fear that he won’t be able to find a pulse, that he is unknowingly staring at Peter Parker’s dead body, and that thought is the most terrifying that he has ever had.
Seconds pass, and the thing that finally spurs him into action is the small twitch of Peter’s fingers against the rubble, followed by a soft, pained groan.
Tony’s feet are moving before he can think about it, and he kneels by the kid’s side, gently cupping his jaw and turning him over. He spares a brief glance around to make sure that no one is lingering (a non-problem, since the kid had successfully cleared out most of the block before any casualties could happen), before pulling the Spider-Man mask off, revealing a youthful, unconscious face.
Peter’s face is stained red, so red he might as well have just left the mask on. His nose is surely broken, leaking twin sluggish trails of crimson down past his mouth. There’s a large gash cutting across his right brow, barely missing his eye. His cheeks (cheeks young enough to still have the softest layer of baby fat, oh god) are dirt-stained. His hair is matted with blood, absolutely caked in it, and Tony quickly realises that it is coming from a massive gash down the center of his skull.
Tony’s eyes stray lower, down to Peter’s pulverized legs, his arm where solid white bone is hanging out, his stomach that is one big mess of black and blue and red, so much red, and the helmet barely has time to come off before Tony is vomiting onto the ground next to him.
He heaves, entire body trembling.
“FRIDAY?” Tony mumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Is it… can I… will he be okay if I move him?”
“Master Peter should only be moved with extreme care. He is in an incredibly fragile condition.” A cool, robotic voice responds.
Obviously, Tony is only going to move the kid with extreme care. He can’t imagine handling the kid with anything but extreme care for the foreseeable future.
“Have Cho ready in the med-bay.” Tony’s hands hover uselessly over the fifteen-year-old’s body, absolutely shaking. “I want the whole team working on him.”
Tony doesn’t hear FRIDAY’s affirmative response, too focused on not hurting the kid any more. With a softness that Tony did not know he was capable of possessing, he gets his hands under Peter’s body, and lifts him to his chest. Peter’s broken limbs hang at a horrible, sickening angle, and the billionaire takes in a sharp breath to keep from throwing up again.
The kid’s head hangs against his arm, so vulnerable and broken and hurt, and a flare of protectiveness bursts in Tony’s aching chest.
It’s Tony’s job to protect him. He promised the kid’s aunt that he would keep him safe, that he would gladly lie down on the wire if it meant Peter could go home in one piece, and he failed him.
Just like he always does.
-
Tony spends nine hours in the waiting area outside of Peter’s room in the med-bay.
It was mid-evening when Tony picked Peter’s broken body off of the ground on Park Avenue, with a brilliant pink sunset painting the sky, and it is the dead of night by the time Cho walks out of the room for the first time to give him an update.
Tony stands immediately as she approaches, heart stuck firmly in his throat. “How…”
“He’ll be okay.” Cho says immediately, and Tony has a single moment to be relieved before the gravity of her sentence hits him. He’ll be okay. In the future. He’s not okay right now. Oh, God, a million worst-case-scenarios rush through the billionaire’s mind all at once, and he suddenly can’t think, can’t breathe-
“Tony.” Cho interrupts the stream of thoughts. “It’s okay. He’s in rush shape now, but I believe he’ll make a full recovery in time.”
He blows out a big breath. “How much time are we talking? His super healing-”
“-Isn’t functioning up to where it normally is right now.” She gestures for him to sit, and he does so uneasily. He just wants to go be with the kid. “The injuries Peter sustained were massive. A colleague of mine and I both agree that the survival rate for a normal person with these kinds of injuries would be less than five percent.”
Panic rises up within him, but he squashes it down. Peter’s enhanced DNA has been a curse in many ways, but if it raises the odds of his survival past five percent, Tony will find the spider that bit him and personally thank it.
“His enhancements are saving him, but they have taken a big blow, too.” She continues. “The injuries are so grave that it’s impacting his body’s ability to heal. He will heal, but it’s going to take a lot more time than we would normally expect. He’s going to need physical therapy, and a lot of support, Tony. We don’t know how the injuries to his skull have impacted his brain functions.”
“His… brain functions? You think there’s something wrong with him?” Tony swallows thickly.
“It’s possible, but not definite.”
Tony stands again. The itch under his skin has grown into a fire, like ants crawling up and down his arms. There is nothing he wouldn’t give to turn back the clock to yesterday morning, when the kid was safe and asleep in his bed at the tower, unharmed and healthy and laughing about some stupid joke that Tony made. “Can I see him?”
Cho nods. “He’s asleep, but you can stay with him. We think that he’ll be awake within twenty-four hours, at the most. Have you talked to his aunt?”
“She’s at a friend's wedding in Florida. I called her a few hours ago. She’s taking the next flight back.”
Peter had been staying with Tony for the last two days. May asked him a month ago if he would be able to take the kid for the weekend, and Tony had agreed immediately, partly for May’s benefit (she had been enthusiastic about the trip, with her friend offering to pay for the flight and the hotel stay) but mostly for his own; he loves having the kid around.
May had trusted Tony to keep Peter safe; to keep him fed and happy for a mere three days until her return.
How is she ever going to trust him again after this? How is Peter going to trust him? The kid looks at him as if he hung the moon and stars with his bare hands, and Tony let him get so hurt that he’s going to need extensive physical therapy before he can even walk again.
Cho cracks the door to Peter’s room open. Tony enters, already believing that he has seen the absolute worst of it, but the sight of the kid still takes his breath away.
Peter is unconscious, not even peaceful in sleep, with his brows pressed together in discomfort. It seems like not a single inch of his body is left unbandaged. His legs, so destroyed they barely even look like legs anymore, are elevated over the bed, held together by thick rods. His left arm is in a cast, and his right has a long strip of gauze wrapped around it, just above the elbow. There’s another strip of gauze wrapped around his head, where the gash on his head was, and a final, smaller strip across his broken nose.
The worst part of it all is the tube stuck down the boy’s throat, sending gusts of mechanical air down his weak throat. His chest rises robotically, up and down, up and down. It looks so wrong there, so perverse, and Tony’s stomach turns in horror for the nth time today.
Tony approaches the bed, hands clenching into fists. There is nowhere to put this rage however, nobody to loathe except for himself, so he forces himself to relax, settling heavily into the cushioned chair next to the boy’s bed.
He isn’t sure where to touch, so afraid of breaking his fragile body further, so Tony settles on gently entwining his fingers with Peter’s. He watches the kid’s face, watches the crease between his brows ease ever-so-slightly.
“Peter.” Tony whispers.
The kid doesn’t respond.
-
By the time the kid wakes up, the sky is inky black. Tony hasn’t eaten or used the washroom or even glanced at the clock since he first entered the room, so the cold beam of moonlight dancing across the floor is Tony’s only way to gauge the time. May arrived a few hours ago, and also just left the room for the first time to eat and shower. She gently encouraged Tony to do the same, but all he could do was nod non-committally, too focused on the kid to think about anything else.
Peter begins to stir, fingers twitching against Tony’s, eyes flicking rapidly under his eyelids. Tony straightens in response, leaning in close.
“Buddy?” He whispers. The boy’s eyes open blearily, locking onto Tony’s. He seems to notice the tube down his throat at the same time that Tony remembers its existence, and his eyes flick down to it in panic, soft choking noises leaving his throat.
The billionaire’s heart tears. “Hey, hey, calm down, buddy, it’s okay. Don’t panic. It’s okay. Just let the tube breathe for you, okay?”
He places his hand on the boy’s chest, just over his heart. A tear slips down Peter’s temple and soaks into the pillow beneath his head. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Peter does indeed calm down slightly, relaxing as he allows the tube to continue filtering large puffs of clean air down his throat, but Tony can still see the deep discomfort behind his eyes, the pain and fear pulling at his youthful features. Tony reaches over and presses the call button above the bed to summon Cho.
He continues to whisper soft reassurances to Peter until Cho arrives minutes later.
“Peter?” She calls, drifting to the other side of his bed. “I’m going to take the tube out of your mouth now, okay? It’ll feel a little uncomfortable, but I’ll be quick.”
Tony can barely resist the urge to jump out of his own skin the whole time Cho is removing the tube. He knows, logically, that she is merely helping him, that Cho would never intentionally harm him, but he still itches to push her hands away from Peter where they are stuck halfway into his mouth. The kid’s eyes are glassy, chest heaving as he tries not to choke as the tube slides out of his mouth.
“Easy, Pete.” Tony whispers, squeezing Peter’s uninjured shoulder.
With the tube out, Tony can almost stand looking at the kid without his heart flip-flopping in his chest, guilt crawling up within him until he’s almost sick with it. The gash across his brow has started to heal slightly, and the blood has been meticulously cleaned out of his hair, but as soon as his eyes stray lower, his stomach wants to betray him again.
“Peter, can you talk?” Cho asks, leaning over him. The kid doesn’t respond at first, and Cho’s eyes flicker to him in fear. Tony thinks about their earlier conversation, about brain damage and full function and he’ll never forgive himself if what happened impacted Peter’s ability to think. He’ll never be able to look at himself in the mirror again. He’s already halfway there, truthfully.
Finally, the boy responds in a small, hoarse voice, “My l-legs.”
“Shh, Pete.” Tony soothes. The kid is staring down at the offending limbs, elevated high above the mattress, looking broken beyond repair. Tony lifts his chin so that he can’t look at them. “They’re going to heal. Cho says it’ll take time and some therapy but they’re going to get better, I promise.”
Peter swallows thickly, eyes still tired and glassy. “May?”
“She’s upstairs. I’ll call for her.” Tony glances at Cho. She nods and disappears back behind the door.
There’s a long beat of silence, and Tony is trying to gather his words when Peter speaks again, voice so small and so, so vulnerable. “I’m scared.”
Tony thinks that the noise that leaves his throat (entirely involuntarily, thank you very much) is comparable to a coo. “I know. I know you are, bud, but I’m going to make sure that you’re alright, okay? I’m not gonna’ leave you. Not again.”
Another tear slips down the boy’s cheek, and Tony wonders how many times his heart can shatter in the span of twenty-four hours.
-
For the first few days in the med-bay, Peter doesn’t do much besides sleep.
Cho has him on spider-brand painkillers to dull the perpetual throbbing in his legs. They make the kid exhausted, even more so on top of the draining injuries. May and Tony both spend their entire afternoons with the kid, blankly watching the TV set up in the corner (which is tuned into one of the kid’s favourite sitcoms) or talking quietly. Tony can’t bring himself to leave at night. After Pepper’s begging to come sleep upstairs repeatedly failed, she forced him to at least get a cot set up next to the kid’s bed so that he wasn’t sleeping in the chair every night.
When Peter is awake, Tony spends every waking moment looking after him to the best of his ability. He orders him food at the barest mention that he may be hungry (Cho says to be careful with his diet while he’s still recovering, so greasy pizza and heaps of Chinese food have been replaced with high-protein sandwiches and large bowls of salad), talks to him as much as he can to keep him distracted from his current reality, and flicks through TV channels until they settle on something they like.
It is eight days before Cho decides that Peter can continue recovering at home, as long as he gets started on physical therapy. The other severe injuries are mostly healed, including his broken arm, which has returned to normal, minus the green bruise that extends from his shoulder to under his elbow. His legs look slightly less gruesome, but the kid gets one foot on the ground as they are discharging him and Tony knows immediately that it’s going to be a while before he has full use of his legs again.
Tony helps load him into the wheelchair, tucking a blanket around his shoulders to keep the cold away. He ensured that the penthouse was prepared for him in advance, so that they won’t run into any problems while the kid is in physical therapy.
Peter is silent that day. He’s been quieter since the accident, but today he’s borderline catatonic, only responding with small nods or the ghost of a smile as he is wheeled around the penthouse. Tony helps get him into bed that night, and Peter grabs his hand when he goes to turn away.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers, shame colouring his features.
Tony’s brow furrows. “What for?”
The kid turns red. “I know that… I know that you didn’t sign on for this- for taking care of me, I mean, and I’m sorry that you feel like you’re- you’re obligated to, or whatever.”
“Pete.” Tony sits down next to him. “Don’t ever apologize. Not for this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Still.”
“No, not still.” He repeats firmly. “I’m going to be right here with you until you’re better, you understand me, Parker?”
The kid doesn’t respond, so Tony nudges him. They lock eyes, and Tony watches the ghost of a smile appear on the boy’s face. The smallest beginnings of victory. “Yes, sir.”
The billionaire can’t help but return the infectious smile. “Good job. You’ve got physical therapy tomorrow- I bet you’ll be walking in no time.”
-
Physical therapy is a disaster.
Tony watches the teen, who has a white-knuckle grip over the iron bars they set up in the gym, painstakingly trudging along. There’s sweat pouring down his face, soaking his t-shirt, but he stands determined, eyes fixed on the end point of the bars.
Tony is walking alongside him outside of the bars. “Come on, kid, you can do it. Just a few more steps.”
Peter releases a shaky breath, taking another tentative step forward. Something happens in that step. Maybe he was too confident, maybe his foot landed wrong, maybe some cosmic deity decided that the kid needed to be knocked down another peg (like he hasn’t suffered enough humiliation already), because Peter tumbles down a second later, crashing down to the ground too quickly for Tony to catch him.
“Shit!” The older man exclaims, dropping to his knees beside Peter, helping him into a sitting position. “You alright, buddy?”
He is horrified to see that Peter is crying.
Hot tears stream down his face, make his lip quiver, and he rubs at his eyes to try to quell the stream. The action is so childish, so vulnerable, that Tony could start crying, himself.
“Pete, Pete, it’s okay, it happens, don’t be upset-”
“I am upset!” Peter shouts, then cries harder. “I’m not- I’m never- how am I supposed to be Spider-Man again? How am I supposed to do anything again? I can’t even walk more than two steps-”
He cuts himself off, sobbing into his knees, and Tony realises, for the first time, that he doesn’t really have a response to this. Not an adequate one, anyways. Peter doesn’t need blind optimism, or the knowledge that it’s going to be better another day that’s not today. He needs comfort.
Tony pulls the quivering body to his chest. He strokes up and down Peter’s arm softly, unable to offer any verbal comfort. He presses a kiss to Peter’s curls.
Peter holds onto him tightly, face pushed into the crook of his neck.
Neither of them say anything for a long, long time.
-
When Peter does walk through the set of bars just a week later, he cries again, but the tears are joyful. They are full of hope and relief and the knowledge that his suffering was temporary, that the storm clouds will always eventually dissipate to make room for the sun. It cannot be hidden forever.
And if Tony also cries a little, no one has to know.