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Peter hissed in pain as his burnt arm brushed a support. He’d known it was a bad idea to try and save the cat that had darted into the burning building he was now in, the cat under his unburnt arm. He’d managed to avoid the worst of the flame, but had suffered some pretty bad burns on his left arm and hand. His suit had melted into the flesh and it was bubbling with blisters. Fire-proofing would’ve been a good idea.
“Karen?” Peter asked, trying to gauge how alone he was, whether his suit was online or not.
“Peter,” Karen responded, and Peter flooded with relief. “Part of your suit has gone offline, is there an issue?”
“It’s pretty badly burned. My skin aswell. Can you call Mr Stark? And analyse a route to get me out of here.”
Karen affirmed and created the route, calling Tony. Peter started along her route as fast as possible without further aggravating the structurally unsafe building. It didn’t involve him swinging out the windows, so he knew he’d have to go through a lot more smoke. The cat stayed firm under his arm.
Tony picked up after the third ring, immediately starting to talk. “Hey kid? Some of your suit’s offline. What’s up with that?”
Peter coughed at the thick black smoke invading his lungs. He was getting really hot due to his lack of thermoregulation, and he could barely breathe. “Uh, it’s okay I just got a bit burned. The suit burned too. Or… melted, more like.”
He heard Tony make a panicked noise. “Are you okay?” his mentor said frantically. “Can you swing over to medbay or do you need me to come get you?”
Peter grimaced, but cheered up a bit when he finally reached the stairwell that would take him out of the building. “I’m kinda still in the burning building…”
“What?” Tony yelled. “Peter! Get out of there!”
Peter coughed again as he ran down the stairs. “I know, I know. I was saving people alright.” It was a half-lie. He had been saving people. The cat was just extra. Icing on the cake.
Tony sighed. “You are such a self sacrificing little shit. I’m coming over and you better be out by the time I’m there.”
“I will be Mr Stark!” Peter reassured, as he was only a couple floors from the bottom. He’d probably be out in less than a minute.
“Good,” his mentor said. The cat decided that was a good time to meow, and loudly. “Is that a cat?” Tony sounded mildly blindsided.
“Don’t be mad–”
“I’m gonna be mad–”
“But I went back in to save the cat.”
“Peter!” Tony remarked loudly.
“His name is Goopy and his owner is a little girl. I couldn’t leave him to die Mr Stark,” Peter complained, and he heard Tony making an exasperated noise on the other side of the line.
“I’m hanging up now,” Tony said.
“Yup!” Peter affirmed, but Tony had already ended the call.
Peter continued running down the stairs quickly, and found himself on the bottom floor within no time. He rushed through the falling chunks of flaming building to the exit, Goopy still tightly in his grasp. Now that he had no distraction, his arm was hurting more, and he could tell it was healing with the fabric still melted in it. Sometimes his healing factor was more of a hindrance than a help, if he was being perfectly honest.
Finally Peter reached the exit, and ran outside to cheers and whoops from the people who had gathered around the fire. A fireman noticed him and yelled out “Yeah Spidey!”, giving Peter a rush of self-confidence and adrenaline that made his pain fade a bit. Looking over to where victims were gathered with paramedics and other personnel, he spotted the girl who owned the cat and her parents. He waved to her and she waved back, before running off in his direction.
“You got Goopy!” she yelled as soon as she got to him, and Peter smiled through the burning pain in his arm and passed the cat to her.
“I did. Take good care of him,” he told the girl. At some point the girl’s parents must have come over because he heard her father say:
“What do we say, Layla?”
“Thank you Spidey!” the girl — Layla — squealed before running over to be picked up by her dad. Next her mother approached Peter.
“Thank you so much Spider-Man. We owe you our little girl’s life. And Goopy’s of course,” she said kindly.
Peter smiled even though she couldn’t see his face. “No problem, ma’am.”
“You should get that checked out,” Layla’s mom continued, nodding toward his burnt arm.
Peter nodded back. “Yes ma’am. My ride should be here soon.”
As if on cue, Iron Man repulsors sounded and the suit touched down behind him.
“Hey Spidey!” Tony yelled at him. “Come on!”
Peter saluted Layla’s mom and turned around, jogging over to Tony. “Hey, Mr Stark.”
There was no doubt that Tony’s eyes were widening inside his suit when he saw Peter’s injury. “Holy shit,” his mentor stated emphatically. “Medbay right now. FRI, get Helen to medbay right now.”
Peter let the cold arms of the Iron Man suit scoop him up and carry him . It wasn’t long before they got to medbay. Dr Cho was waiting and as soon as they got inside, Peter slapped the spider on his suit and let it fall off. Unfortunately, it was fused to his wound. The pain from the wound was starting to radiate through his whole arm, and he could barely move it with how much it stung.
“We’re going to need to cut the suit. I assume scissors won’t do it, Tony?” Dr Cho asked. Tony shook his head no.
“I’ll go get some shit that can cut it. It’ll be a couple minutes.”
Peter frowned. He didn’t want to cut his suit, even if it was likely burned beyond repair. Tony had already left the room though, and Dr Cho was watching him. She nodded to a med and he sat down on it, suit pooling around him awkwardly. He looked at her. She wouldn’t stop him if he just… ripped the suit off. He had more than enough strength, and she wasn’t quick enough. Making his decision, he grabbed onto the suit and tore it off his skin.
He briefly registered Dr Cho’s shout but it was nothing compared to the blinding pain that overtook him for a few seconds. It was like his arm had exploded, though he knew logically it was just skin and flesh being peeled off. Like a really extreme version of a hangnail.
“Oh my god,” Dr Cho said, and Peter watched her run across the room to where he was, grabbing medical supplies from a nearby cart to treat his now profusely bleeding arm.
“Bad idea,” Peter groaned as the pain came in waves.
“You idiot,” Dr Cho scolded, and Peter thought it was the meanest she’d ever been to him. She had started pouring copious amounts of stinging disinfectant on his wound when Tony burst in, holding some weird pair of scissors.
“Holy–” Tony cut himself off. “What happened?”
“Peter was an idiot,” Dr Cho complained, and Peter whined as she started bandaging his arm far too tightly for his liking. He knew logically it was to stop his wound bleeding, but still.
“You did this?” Tony squeaked, and Peter nodded, having no other way to respond as the pain was a bit too much.
“Like I said,” Dr Cho started, “he’s an idiot. This’ll heal fine but only because of your enhanced healing. If you weren’t enhanced, this would be very different.”
“Peter,” his mentor scolded, but then immediately softened as he saw the probably obvious pain on Peter’s face. “Hey, squirt. It’s gonna be okay. Do you want me to call May?”
Peter shook his head no. May didn’t need to come, and it wasn’t life threatening or anything. Tony nodded in understanding, and as he did so Dr Cho finished doing whatever she was doing on his arm. She straightened up.
“This is a standard bandage, under it is a special bandage made for enhanced people. It will heal into your skin. It’s to prevent the normal bandage from healing into your skin, but can’t apply as much pressure as a normal bandage so we have to use that as well. Okay?”
Peter didn’t really care what was going on with his bandages, but he nodded anyway.
“How long until he can take it off?” Tony asked, and Peter internally thanked Tony for asking.
“Just come to me in a couple days. I’ll check and change it if I need to.”
Peter and Tony both nodded, and Tony dismissed Dr Cho.
“Hey bambino,” Tony comforted, coming down to sit on a chair next to Peter’s bed. “How’s the pain?”
“Not too bad,” Peter stated truthfully. His arm had stopped hurting as much since Dr Cho had put the bandages on.
“I’ll still get you your special painkillers. I don’t wanna see you in pain.”
Peter smiled.
“You’re the best Mr Stark.”
“I know!” his mentor said cheerily, “They should get me dad of the year award or something!”
Both of them froze. Peter looked up at Tony. He seemed mildly mortified at what he’d said.
“Mr Sta–”
“Not. A. Word.”