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The Compound is quiet, for once. The lab techs have all gone home for the day, the office staff have locked their doors for the night and Tony Stark is ready for some serious sleeping. Well, some serious laying in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours trying not to think about all the shit that has gone wrong, or could go wrong in his life.
There’s a soft hum of the arc reactor deep below the Compound, dim lights buzz gently around him and Tony is diving into his Alaska King bed. Nothing can ruin this moment, Tony is determined. He has been awake for over four days, Pepper has yelled at him at least three times today over the phone from her conference in Paris and he is finally giving in to her demands that he go to bed. He’ll never admit it to her, but it does feel pretty damn good to be off of his feet and rest his eyes, even if he knows he won’t sleep much.
FRIDAY turns the lights off, dousing the room in darkness and Tony lets his eyes fall shut as he lets the quiet wash over him. While Pepper has been encouraging him to take more time for himself, a truly quiet night is still rare for him, whether he be musing over a new idea or letting Peter stay up far too late to watch another nerdy movie. He wouldn’t trade it for the world. Still, a night to himself, to relax and rest is incredibly enticing.
A few hours pass before he starts to feel sleep begin to pull him under, and he can just feel his mind shutting down when a loud noise from the main area of the penthouse shakes him awake. Tony sits up abruptly, startled by the sudden noise and reaches to call for his suit.
‘Peter Parker has entered the building, Boss,’ FRIDAY’s voice comes from above and Tony frowns for a moment. He hadn’t been expecting Peter this evening. And a glance at the clock by his bedside tells him it’s the next morning and Peter certainly should not be out of bed at this hour.
‘Is he okay?’ Tony asks, throwing the covers off and making his way towards the door.
‘Unclear,’ FRIDAY responds.
‘Unclear? What kind of answer is that? You’re meant to keep an eye on him,’ Tony retorts, but he waves FRIDAY off when she tries to answer, not wanting Peter to overhear whatever she has to say as he quickly heads towards the lounge.
‘Pete?’ Tony calls out as he walks down the dark hallway. ‘Are you okay?’
The only answer Tony receives is a heavy cough, followed by a string of curse words that Tony definitely didn’t teach him. He rounds the corner to find Peter hunched over himself, one arm wrapped around his torso while the other clutches onto the edge of the kitchen island.
‘FRI, turn the lights up.’ Tony orders as he quickens his pace to close the distance between them faster. ‘Kid, what’s going on, are— holy shit…’
Tony trails off as the lights come on and reveal the state of the boy clutching onto the countertop like a lifeline.
‘Page Dr Cho.’
***
Peter loves his life. He’s got a super cool internship with Mr Stark, and he’s learning so much from all of their lab days. And not to mention all the time he gets to spend with him outside of the lab, getting takeaway and watching movies, or playing stupid games together. Aunt May has been shockingly chill about the whole Spider-Man thing, after Mr Stark smoothed some things over with her and assured her that Peter has all the tech and supervision to be safe on the streets. Not that he needs supervision, but it makes Aunt May feel better.
He’s got two awesome friends that he gets to hand out with almost every day and he’s acing all of his classes at school. Things could not be going better for Peter, and that’s a feeling he doesn’t remember ever knowing before. Swinging through the streets of New York, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for any sight of a crime, Peter couldn’t be happier.
He was definitely meant to be back home an hour ago, but it’s the weekend tomorrow, so he’s sure Aunt May won’t begrudge him a little extra time on patrol. All she’s been saying lately is how glad she is to see him so happy; there’s no way she’ll be pissed off with him for this.
So he continues swinging through the streets of Queens, looking out for anybody in trouble, or who just needs a helping hand. He walks an older lady home from an Italian diner, then helps a man carry his many bags of groceries home. He’s slowly making his way home, just with a few detours on the way. He’s only twenty minutes away from home when he overhears a conversation in an alleyway below him.
‘Remember, go for the cash safe in the back,’ one man says, pulling a balaclava over his face as he speaks to the others around him. Peter counts eight people, all men in their late teens or early twenties, and all wearing face coverings.
‘They look too intense to just be robbing the gas station, don’t you think, Karen?’ Peter asks his AI assistant, backing away from the top of the building he is squatting on to avoid being seen.
‘Judging by their numbers, I would agree that the gas station is too small of a target for them,’ Karen agrees, ‘I would suggest following them to their destination,’
‘Or I just jump ‘em from here, keep them away from whatever they’re wanting,’ Peter suggests, peering over the edge once again at the masked men.
‘We only get one chance at this, so no mistakes, alright?’ a second man speaks, one who is standing next to the first, likely his second in command. ‘Anybody fucks this up, I’ll cut their tongue out,’
Peter grimaces at the threat, and comments under his breath, ‘Bit dramatic there, buddy,’
‘The plan is up to you, Peter, but I believe that these culprits may be more difficult to detain than others you have encountered,’ Karen warns him. ‘Would you like me to call Mr Stark for back up?’
Peter scoffs indignantly. ‘Please, I’ve fought way worse than these guys, give me some credit, K,’
Karen pauses before answers. ‘Very well, Peter,’
Peter shoots a web at the edge of the building he’s on and connects it to one on the opposite building, before lowering himself down, hanging upside down as he descends. The idiots below don’t notice a thing, too busy muttering their plans to each other.
When he’s hanging just above the bad guys, Peter waves a hand to get their attention. A few look up with shocked faces, but at least four of them don’t even notice him. He rolls his eyes under his mask.
‘Hey, guys, what’re you up to?’ Peter asks, feigning an interest in their shenanigans to get them to pay attention. ‘I hope it’s nothing illegal, you know that’s really bad if it is,’
‘It’s Spider-Man!’ the second in command guy cries, pointing at Peter like he’s an alien.
‘Really? Where?’ Peter looks over both of his shoulders, before letting go of the web still suspending him in the alleyway and shooting another at the guy’s torso, webbing him against the wall before anybody can react. ‘Oh, there,’
Now it’s go-time, the obviously slow criminals have caught on to the fact that they’ve been ambushed and curl their hands into fists. Peter grins under his mask and waits for them to make their first move.
They’ve broken their circle and are standing in a staggered line, slowly closing in on Peter. The one furthest to the left jumps forward, throwing his fist out at Peter’s face, which he catches neatly in his hand and turns over until the man shouts in pain. Then Peter aims a kick at his stomach, before shooting three neat webs at him, attaching him to the wall next to his friend.
‘You’re gonna have to do better than that, guys,’ Peter goads. With two down, there are only six left and Peter knows that he’s got this in the bag. Another easy day on patrol, and a fun story to wow Ned with when they hang out tomorrow.
‘You’ll regret that, Spider-Man,’ the ring-leader sneers, slipping his hand into his pocket and pulling out something that glints in the dim moonlight shining through the fog over New York. He slips the metal over his knuckles and Peter knows that he really doesn’t want to take a punch with those things. Two others pull out batons, and Peter braces himself for a fight.
It all happens so fast, Peter barely has time to register what his body is doing to respond to what he sees. But he lets the rhythm find him, analysing the fighting styles of each man, figuring out who is sloppy and who is calculated, who is fast and who is slower.
Most of them are fast. Most of them are calculated. Peter’s limbs move faster than his brain can, a baton flies out at his head from the right and he just manages to deflect it as he kicks out at another attacker to his left. He feels that tingling sense of impending doom a split second before pain rips through his ribcage and, caught off guard, Peter’s body folds around the sharp bruising. It gives the ringleader of the group enough time to land a punch on his jaw, the brass knuckles around his fingers crashing into bone and Peter yelps. His body screams to react to the pain, but he doesn’t have time for that. He fights through it and carries on.
His ears ring with the force of another impact to the side of his head, and it throws his senses off. Peter doesn’t understand why this is happening; he never loses a fight.
He’s losing this one.
Against four dumb-ass criminals in the back of some disgusting New York alleyway. Peter doubles his efforts, refusing to concede defeat against these idiots. Karen is saying something to him, but he can’t quite hear her, and the subtle drone of her concerned voice is too distracting. He tells her to be quiet.
‘Not so strong tonight, are you, Spidey?’ the ringleader sneers as he adjusts his brass knuckles. ‘Not sleeping too well? Too much homework?’
Peter’s lip curls behind his mask at the taunts. There’s no way this guy could know anything about him, but the insinuation of it pisses him off. Peter lunges forward, only to be intercepted by one of the guy’s lackeys who tries to trip him up, but Peter is faster. He grabs the man by his arms and tosses him to the side, sending him flying into the brick wall.
The man lets out a low groan as his body crumples on the floor, and Peter tries not to allow himself any time to regret his actions, instead shooting a series of webs to hold him in place and turning back to the rest of the group.
He lunges once more at the ringleader, throwing his fist out to the man’s face and managing to clock him around the cheekbone. Unfortunately, he bounces back quickly enough and Peter falls for his fake out, dodging one first to the right, only to be met with another colliding cleanly with his teeth. He feels the blood explode in his mouth and the taste makes him feel sick.
Still, he ploughs on.
Time doesn’t really exist in these moments, it could be five minutes or five hours that pass until Peter is standing in an alleyway with six criminals webbed up, in varying states of consciousness. He looks around at his handy-work, his ears ringing and body aching.
Blood seeps through the knuckles of his gloves, his ribcage is on fire and he can feel various bruises blooming along his limbs. As the adrenaline rushing through his body begins to fade, Karen’s voice slowly comes back into focus.
‘Peter, you have sustained serious injuries, including a severe concussion. Would you like me to contact Mr Stark?’ she asks him gently.
Peter shakes his head vehemently, making his way out of the alley. ‘No… don’t need Mr Stark. Can you just, uh, send the cops out here to pick ‘em up, and… yeah, probably time to go to bed,’
As he makes his way down the street, Peter doesn’t notice the way his words begin to slur together, nor the way he grows slowly more and more hunched over, trying to ease the pain in his torso.
‘Peter, I really must insist that you go straight to the Avengers Compound, or the BabySitter Protocol will be activated,’ Karen warns him.
Peter rolls his eyes. ‘Bullshit… stupid protocols,’
‘You are severely injured, Peter—’
‘S’fine, it’s not even that much blood,’ Peter looks down at his suit, that will certainly need a wash and a few threads re-stitched, but he’s definitely looked worse in his time as Spider Man. Honestly, Karen is seriously over-reacting.
‘Blood is not the only indicator of injury. I will contact Mr Stark and have him—’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa… fine, I’ll go to the Compound. Don’t drag him outta bed, he was gonna have a chill night tonight. Leave him alone,’ Peter insists, turning clumsily around a corner to head upstate, instead of back to Aunt May’s.
‘You are too injured to make it to the—’
‘Pipe down, will you?’ Peter huffs, reaching his arm up with a wince to shoot a web to the top of a nearby building and swing himself forwards. ‘I’ll be fine,’
***
That may have been a slight overstatement. By the time Peter can see the Compound, he can hardly breathe for the screaming pain in his ribs and the way the world keeps tilting left and right around him. Still, he tries to enter quietly, sloppily punching in the code to the window access Mr Stark put in for him. It takes him a few tries to get his shaking fingers to his the right keys, but he manages eventually.
He clambers through, trying to keep his movements quiet, but as he’s lifting his leg through the window, his grip falters and he slips through, falling in a heap on the floor of Mr Stark’s penthouse with a shout of pain. Shit.
Mr Stark’s voice comes softly from his room, no doubt asking FRIDAY what the hell is going on. He had been trying not to wake Mr Stark, but that doesn’t seem to have worked. It’s pitch dark in the penthouse, meaning Mr Stark has no doubt gone to bed for once and not Peter’s just gone and woken him up.
Knowing that his plan is foiled and Mr Stark will find him soon enough with a hundred questions, Peter takes a few steps into the penthouse, towards the kitchen island, and leans against the cool marble. He tries to suck in a few deep breaths, but it hurts too much, so he settles for lots of little, pathetic pants as he tries to ignore the pain long enough for his healing factor to kick in.
‘Pete? Are you okay?’ Mr Stark calls out as his footsteps pad quickly down the hall. Peter can’t muster up an answer, instead reaching up to pull his mask off just in time for a hacking cough to wrack his body hard enough that his eyes water from the pain.
‘Kid, what’s going on, are you— holy shit!’ Mr Stark’s eyes burn a hole through the side of Peter’s head, until he says the three words Peter hates the most: ‘Page Dr Cho,’
Peter looks over his shoulder as the lights come on just enough to shed enough light on him that Mr Stark looks as though he’s seeing a ghost.
‘Oh, hey, Mr Stark.’ Peter says weakly, trying to smile but it only seems to make Mr Stark look more horrified. He can feel the blood dripping from his tongue and teeth through his lips. ‘Fancy seeing you here,’
‘What the hell happened to you, kid?’ Mr Stark asks, rushing forward to close the remaining gap between them and placing one arm around Peter’s back.
‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ Peter responds, subconsciously leaning back into Mr Starks’ arm. ‘My, uh… my ribs kinda hurt,’
‘Yeah, no shit, Pete, you look like hell,’ Mr Stark says. ‘C’mon, lets get you down to the med bay,’
‘No,’ Peter whispers, pleading desperately, turning to looks at Mr Stark through blurred vision. ‘Not the medbay,’
Mr Stark shows no sympathy. ‘Yes, the medbay. It does not look good in my image for New York’s favourite hero to die on my watch,’
‘M’not dying,’ Peter insists as Mr Stark manages to peel him away from the counter top and steer him towards the elevator. He hisses in pain at the movement, then quickly quietens himself, lest he prove Mr Stark’s point. The room sways more violently than before as Mr Stark guides him forwards, and Peter finds himself tilting severely to the side.
‘Steady on, there, Underoos,’ Mr Stark tells him, but it’s too late.
The world falls on it’s side, and Peter goes down with it. His blurred vision fades to black and the pain dwindles to a dull ache before he feels the tug of darkness pull him under as Mr Stark’s faint voice begs Peter to stay with him.
***
Tony has never known fear as he does watching Peter’s eyes roll back in his head as his body goes limp. One moment he’d been stumbling along, leaning against Tony, and the next he’d fallen completely the other way. Tony had tried to catch him, and sat there on the floor of his penthouse cradling the boy’s unconscious body as he demanded FRIDAY to get Cho here quicker.
Karen finally uses her goddamn initiative and connects through to FRIDAY to give them a full rundown of Peter’s injuries. Apparently Peter had forbidden her from contacting him, and insisted that he was fine. When Tony made Karen’s protocols, he’d never imagined Peter would outright deny seeking help when he’s injured. But apparently Tony is going to have to adjust a lot of the AI’s programming before he lets Peter out on the streets again.
‘C’mon Peter, you gotta stay with me, bud. Don’t you dare go anywhere, you hear me?’ Tony tells him, trying to sound stern and mentorly, but it just comes out broken and desperate. ‘What the hell am I gonna tell your aunt, huh? She’ll kill me. Don’t let your aunt kill me, okay?’
It feels like hours that Tony is sitting on the cold floor of the penthouse, holding pathetically onto the unconscious body of a boy he swore not to care this much about. He counts every tiny, hitched breath that rattles through his chest, every little twitch of his muscles. FRIDAY assures him it has only been ten minutes when Dr Cho comes up through the elevator, two nurses in tow carrying a stretcher and boxes of medical equipment.
‘Tony, what happened?’ she asks as she rushes over, kneeling by Peter’s head immediately.
‘I- I don’t know, he just came in like this and he said his ribs hurt and then… then he just…’ Tony trails off, unable to verbalise the way that Peter’s body had simply crumbled, literally folded in on itself and collapsed to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
‘Okay, let’s have a look,’ Dr Cho says, calm as ever, even when Tony feels like the walls are closing in and the world is about to shatter around him.
She pulls a penlight out of her pocket and pulls one of Peter’s eyelids back, shining the light on the unfocused eyeball beneath for a moment before turning it away, and then back again. The same is repeated on the other eye and then Dr Cho hums in dissatisfaction.
‘We need to get him into surgery. Tony, help me get him on the stretcher. Watkins, call in a surgical team,’ Dr Cho commands. Tony’s body goes numb.
‘Surgery? Why does he need surgery, he said his ribs hurt, not his—’
‘Tony, now, we don’t have much time,’ Dr Cho insists, grabbing Peter under his arms and motioning with her head for Tony to grab his legs. He does so as gently as he can, moving Peter’s limp body over onto the stretcher that has been placed beside him.
‘Cho, what’s going on? Why does he need surgery?’ Tony asks as Watkins puts his phone away and picks up one end of the stretcher while the other nurse takes the other end.
‘He has a bleed on his brain, I need to fix it before it swells too much,’ Dr Cho explains. Tony has known the woman for a long time, he knows when she’s holding out on him.
‘Or what?’
Dr Cho looks at him knowingly with a long sigh, before turning around and following the nurses back to the elevator.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as we’re done, Tony,’ she tells him, holding up a hand when he moves to follow. ‘There’s nothing more you can do, you have to leave it to us now,’
The doors shut in his face before Tony can force his way in, and he’s left staring at his reflection in the metal, heart hammering in his chest and hands shaking. He can’t get the image of Peter’s slack face, blood dripping from his jaw, his forehead and seeping through his suit enough that when Tony looks down, his hands are red. There are droplets of blood dotted along the floor, tracking exactly where Peter has been. He could probably track them all the way back to wherever this fight happened.
There are so many things Tony should be doing. He wants to know who did this to his kid, what bastard thought they could get away with hurting him. He should call May, she’ll no doubt be worrying about him and why he hasn’t come home. Or maybe she’s working a night shift and doesn’t even know. It’s nearly three in the morning which means that if May were at home waiting for him, she’d have called by now. She hasn’t, so she must be working. Still, Tony should call.
He should probably call Pepper too. She’s always telling him that he needs to let her in, tell her when he’s scared or if something has gone wrong or if he just needs someone.
Instead, Tony keeps staring at the metal elevator doors in front of him, unable to do anything for Peter. Unable to do anything at all.
It’s long past dawn by the time Tony hears from Dr Cho. He’d long since taken to pacing the length of the penthouse, hands clasped together tightly as he digs his nails into the skin until there are dents there that will take hours to leave. A few drops of blood bead around them that he hastily wipes away when her voice comes over the intercom.
‘Tony, he’s out of surgery now. You can come down and see him,’ she tells him. ‘He’s going to be okay,’
Tony feels like a balloon that has had all the air let out of it. All of the tension leaks out of his body at those blessed words and it takes a moment for them to fully sink in.
He’s going to be okay.
His legs move without thinking, carrying him towards the elevator as he punches in the number for the medical floor. The elevator seems to move slower than it ever has as he descends through the floors, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor as his heart rate picks up again.
As soon as the doors are open, he’s running down the hallway, through the testing section of the R&D department, placed on the same floor of the medical wing for obvious reasons. A few employees who have come in to get a head start stare at him in confusion, but he pays them no mind. Every second it takes to get to Peter is a second too long.
Tony bursts through the doors into the medical wing and heads straight to the recovery room where Dr Cho is speaking to a team of nurses outside. She dismisses them quickly when she sees Tony running over.
‘He’s okay?’ he asks panting as he tries to catch his breath.
‘He’s going to be just fine, Tony,’ Dr Cho assures him. ‘Surgery was difficult, but we managed to get the bleeding under control and his healing factor kicked in to do the rest. He’ll have an easier recovery than most people would after an injury like that thanks to his mutations. He’s a very lucky kid,’
Tony nods at her words, too out of breath and stunned to say anything. But she’s right. He’s a kid. A kid that he lets go out into the streets every night to fight crime as long as he’s back in time to finish his homework. Peter always tells him that most of what he does is helping elder people or rescuing cats out of trees and dumpsters, but this… this is also part of it. And it’s absolutely terrifying.
‘Can I see him?’ Tony asks, when he realises the silence is stretching on for too long and Dr Cho is looking at him expectantly.
‘He’s just through that door,’ Dr Cho points down the hallway, ‘he’ll still be sleeping for a while, but you can sit with him as long as you like,’
Tony nods his understanding, and makes his way into Peter’s room. As soon as he opens the door, he’s met with the familiar beeping of a heart monitor. The steady rhythm steadies him as he steps further in to see Peter lying in a bed, IV lines and monitoring cables running all over his body. There’s a chair already set up by his bed, no doubt for him.
Peter looks so peaceful lying there. The blood has been wiped away from his face, and Tony can see where the wounds are already beginning to heal. There are dark bags under Peter’s eyes that Tony hasn’t noticed before, but he’s sure that he should have. Dr Cho warned him when they first did a work up on the extent of Peter’s mutations that lack of sleep or nutrition will have a quick and severe impact on his healing factor and superior senses.
Guilt claws up his chest and Tony reaches forward, holding onto one of Peter’s warm hands in an attempt to assuage it. To remind him that Peter is alive. He’s going to be just fine. Tony will do better this time. He won’t ever let this happen again. Nobody gets to hurt this kid.
Tony sits in that chair for so long that his backside goes numb and his back starts to ache, but he ignores it all in favour of maintaining his watch. He doesn’t let go of Peter’s hand all day, holding it delicately. May will be here soon enough, he’d managed to break through his brain fog somewhere around dawn and have FRIDAY tell her what had happened. She was just about to go into surgery herself, though, and Tony told her that he’ll take care of her kid so that she can help someone else’s. Nobody could hope for a better nurse than May.
It’s nearly dinner time when the hand clasped between Tony’s twitches and his attention snaps back to Peter’s face, waiting for any sign of him waking up.
His eyelids flutter for a moment before slowly opening and Peter squints around the room, frowning at his surroundings until he spots Tony.
‘Oh… hey, Mr Stark,’ he whispers hoarsely. Tony smiles down at him.
‘Hey, kid. How’re you feeling?’ he asks quietly, aware that Peter’s senses are always more sensitive when he’s just woken up. Tony gives Peter a moment to answer as he moves one hand up to rest atop his head, gently stroking his thumb across Peter’s forehead.
‘Me? Oh, I feel like a million bucks,’ Peter grins, leaning his head upwards into Tony’s hand. He wonders if Peter realises what he’s doing, or if he’s too sleepy and drugged up to notice.
‘Yeah? Just a million?’ Tony jokes, hoping to keep some lightheartedness in the conversation.
‘Hey, man, not all of us can be billionaires. Some of us are mere lowly millionaires,’ Peter retorts, lips still curled up in a sleep-addled smile. His words are slow and amusingly slurred, but Tony doesn’t have the heart to poke fun at him for it right now. Peter continues to glance around the room, his frown returning once more before he turns back to Tony, ‘Why’m I in hospital?’
‘You don’t remember?’ Tony asks, trying to hide the edge of worry in his voice.
Peter hums thoughtfully. ‘I remember fighting some bad guys. They knew what they were doing… Shoulda listened to Karen,’
Tony huffs a humourless laugh. ‘Yeah, we’re gonna have to talk about that when you’re feeling better. That and your sleep schedule, Mr Parker,’
‘My sleep schedule’s fine,’ Peter insists, but the obvious bags under his eyes really don’t serve to make his words believable.
‘Uh-huh, sure,’ Tony responds dryly. ‘Doesn’t matter for now. You’re okay. That’s all I care about right now,’
Peter laughs quietly and murmurs, ‘Ha, you care about me,’
A distant part of Tony, one forged years ago in a cold childhood and cemented in an adulthood of betrayal screams at him to turn and run. But the newer parts of him, those melted by all the good people he’s met along the way, knows that he’ll never leave.
‘Whatever, kid,’ Tony retorts, rolling his eyes as he leans forward to gently wrap his arm around Peter. Another little piece of him melts when he feels one of Peter’s arms wrap around his back in return, his fingers drumming gently against his spine.
‘Don’t ever scare me like that again,’