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“Care to explain this?”Peter’s school sent Tony a letter informing them that Peter's performance had slipped drastically. his assignments were never finished in time and his grades had deteriorated.
“Mr. Stark I – I – had patrols!” Peter exclaimed. “I was out all night and forgot to study for the test, that’s all!”
“that’s all?! Peter, you can’t compromise your academics for superhero stuff – you are still a kid!”
“I’m not a kid, Mr. Stark! I’m Spiderman, it’s my job to protect this city, and I can’t just not look after it !”None of them noticed when they getting heated and in no time, they were shouting at each other.“I’m grounding you,” Tony stated finally in a voice that made it clear that there was no more place for an argument. “Till you catch up on all the class work and assignments, no more petrol.”
“But you can’t do that! “Peter was getting more frustrated by the second.
“Sure, I can,” Tony told him, and just like that, white-hot anger exploded inside Peter.
“You are not my dad, Mr. Stark!” he yelled.
For a second, sudden silence reigned over the room. Then Peter stormed out of the lab, Tony still standing there blankly.
A WEEK LATER
Tony sighed, yet again as his thumbs hovered over Peter's contact number. the kid hadn’t replied to any of his texts, and he had decided not to call the kid to give him some space.Truth to be told, it had hurt. tony knew Peter wasn’t his kid biologically or juridically, but he had always thought that he had a parental relationship with the kid and he assumed the feeling was mutual.
He was wrong.
He spent the last week analyzing every moment he had ever spent with Peter, wondering if he was acting exactly the way his dad did.
What a fucking nightmare.
But now it was a superhero matter. crazy enhanced terrorists firing lasers swarmed New York City and Iron Man and Spiderman were required to assist the shield agents and NYPD to subdue them. tony needed to call the kid and tell him to suit up, but somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to just press that button.Fortunately, he was saved by Nick Fury who informed him that Spiderman was already on scene and debriefed and that all they were waiting was for Iron Man to arrive.
The fight was exhausting. the wannabe terrorists, ‘the conquerors’, they called themselves, fired lasers endlessly. they were enhanced and so were their weapons – the lasers cut through bulletproof vests like butter, which meant it was up to Tony and Peter to bring them down. peter hadn’t talked to Tony even once, not even for the bare necessities and Tony could easily see the tension in the kid’s body from the way he held himself up, all stiff and shoulders pulled back rigidly.
The fight was almost over when Peter's suit stopped working. he took an EMP blast to the chest, right over the spider emblem, and the suit just shut down.
Peter realized too late that he was mid-swing in the air.
“The wind is in my face,” he thought as he fell from the top of a 40-story Highrise.The footpath came nearer and nearer and he closed his eyes, accepting that this was it. peter braced for impact.
But it never came. he collided with the empty Ironman suit that wrapped around him.Peter opened his eyes in the safe cocoon of the armor and watched its owner, now vulnerable and exposed, get shot and fall to the ground.
“No!” Peter screamed. tony couldn’t die like that, not after …everything.
He wanted to rush to the man’s side immediately, but the suit moved on autopilot, fighting and neutralizing the remaining bad guys one after another.Peter, trapped in the confines of the suit, sobbed. guilt and fear churned inside him.
“Dispatch, we need paramedics now !”
“Copy. Ambulance en route. ETA 7 minutes.”The suit came to a stop in front of Tony. peter stumbled out; his vision hazy with tears.For a moment, all Peter saw was a different father figure bleeding out on a different road.“No no no not thinking about that, not now – “
Tony lay on his back in a pool of his blood.
Peter fell to his knees beside him.
“Okay,” he breathed through his mouth. “Okay, I can do this.”
Peter let his Avengers training take over the panic.
Step 1: assess the injury.
He rolled up Tony’s ACDC t-shirt and sucked in a sharp breath.
The gaping wound on the top left of Tony’s chest pumped out blood with every heartbeat. The area around it was mottled with red and purple.
‘Internal bleeding’, peters mind unhelpfully supplied.Step 2: put pressure on the wound.
Peter put both of his hands on top of it and pressed.This felicitated a response from Tony. he groaned and weakly tried to push away the hands on his chest.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter said. “I know it hurts, but it's for your good, I promise.”
Tony raised a shaking hand to Peters. “You – urt? -Pete?”
Peter knew what he was trying to say. “I'm not hurt, Mr. Stark.”
“Good – that’s good- “Tony managed to rasp out before he went limp.
His panic turned up three notches.“No, Mr. Stark, stay with me, please – “Peter was starting to hyperventilate, his breaths coming in short, harsh gasps.
“Mr. Stark, please! stay awake, you hear me, don’t go to sleep yet – I can’t lose you too!Tony looked up at him with eyes glassy with pain. the bloodstains stood out like ink on paper on his deathly pale face.
His eyes locked with Peters for a brief second – and then rolled back.
Blood trickled down from his lips.
“No!” Peter cried. “Wake up please, Mr. Stark, Tony- “
It was only then he realized that his mentor’s chest was still under his hands.
“Shit!” Peter swung his leg over Tony and straddled him.
“One-two-three-four-staying alive-staying alive- “tears streamed down his face as he pushed down on Tony’s chest.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark, I shouldn’t have yelled at you – I didn’t mean it! you are like a dad to me.”
He felt a rib break under his hands, then another.
“Please wake up, Mr. Stark, I'm sorry, you can’t die for me!”
Peter felt his strength fading. the impact of crashing into the metal iron man suit hadn’t been pretty, and he was already battered from the battle. he didn’t know for how long he could keep up CPR.
“Please wake up……. dad”
This time Tony’s body reacted, and Peter felt a small thud under his hands.Peter fell to the side in relief.
Tony was breathing, but his own body was nearing its limit.
Three paramedics rushed up to them. peter recognized them as James, Chris, and Eddie – Helen Cho’s handpicked medic unit.
Chris took out field gauze and started packing Tony’s wound.
Eddie took his pulse and blood pressure.
“Pulse is weak, BP is low. He’s lost a lot of blood – going into hypovolemic shock. start a line, James, and run it wide open. call the med bay and tell them to prepare for a massive transfusion protocol. I’m not getting bilateral chest rise, possibly a punctured lung. judging by the internal bleeding, I’d say hemopneumothorax.”
“he’s severely bradycardiac – push Epi. Preparing to intubate.”
Soon they rolled the unresponsive man onto a gurney and rushed him away.
James now hurried towards Peter.
He felt his world starting to go hazy. the adrenaline rush faded and as soon as Tony's ambulance went out of sight, Peter’s world went black.
Peter woke up to too bright lights and too white walls. the absence of the fuzzy numbness told him that he wasn’t on the good stuff, which was good, because it meant that he wasn’t too seriously injured. his body ached everywhere, but Peter ignored it in favor of sitting up.Helen Cho smiled at him.” how are you feeling, Peter?”
Peter managed to mumble out an intelligent “what- “Then he remembered everything. “How bad is it?” he asked.“Not too bad, you got a couple of broken ribs and a concussion; your super healing is already starting to mend them.”
“I meant Mr. Stark.”
Dr. Cho hesitated. “he’s -critical, but more or less stable. I managed to get the bleeding under control.”
“So …. he’s going to be, okay?”
“We put him in an induced sleep to help him heal, but yeah, he’s going to be okay. he will be under observation for the next 48 hours .”Peter was more than relieved. “Can I – can I see him?”
He desperately needed to see, to touch Tony and see if he was okay.
Helen smiled. “Look to your side.”
and indeed, Tony was right there on a bed beside him. peter blamed it on the concussion that he hadn’t noticed him before, or heard the ‘hiss-click’ of the ventilator.
Tony looked like death warmed over – his face gaunt, the bandages covering most of his torso visible even through the hospital gown, the countless machines and monitors surrounding him beeping and whirring to keep him alive.As soon as Helen Cho left, Peter got out of bed. he ignored the way his head throbbed and ribs hurt and stumbled to Tony’s bed. mindful of the multitude of wires and tubes he climbed up beside Tony and buried his face onto Tony’s chest. he threw his arm over his chest, nearly hugging the man from his side.
“I’m so glad you aren’t dead, Mr. Stark.” He whispered.
Then he promptly fell asleep.
Peter was discharged the next morning. or rather, he was discharged medically. because he spent most of his time in a chair beside Tony’s bed, holding the man’s limp hand and begging him to wake up.
Peter wasn’t in the room when Tony finally woke up. he had gone to take a long overdue shower when Friday informed him: “Boss is awake and asking about you, Peter.” And he would have dashed out right then if the said AI hadn’t reminded him that his hair was full of shampoo.When he did run up to the hospital wing, however, he froze outside the door. because Mr. Stark was talking to rhodey, and he was talking about him. Was Tony still mad at him?“-Still mad at me?” Tony asked and Peter could tell from the slurring that the man was drugged up to his gills with painkillers.
“Honestly tones, only you would ever get shot protecting someone a then ask if they are still mad at you.”
After a small pause, he let out a long-suffering sigh. “No, he’s not mad. at all. really worried, actually.”“Listen, man, I got to call someone, but I’ll be back in fifteen, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.” And Rhodey left.
Peter rushed in. Tony looked much, much better sitting up, though supported by pillows. most of the wires and tubes were gone.
He smiled tiredly. “Hey, Pete.”
And the dam of tears Peter had been holding back burst out. he flung his arms around Tony and sobbed on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry Mr. Stark! I’m sorry about what I said to you – I didn’t mean it, I swear! you are like my dad.”“I-I know, kiddo.”
tony tried and failed pathetically to make it convincing.Peters's heart twitched painfully in the remainder of exactly how badly he had hurt his mentor.
“I promise I’ll never yell at you again, Mr. Stark- I am so sorry; you- you gave m your suit for me and then you got shot and you weren’t breathing and all I could think was what if the last thing I told you was-you know; I’m sorry, dad!”
Tony raised his good hand and pulled Peter to his chest.
“My -my kid. my good kid. ill always protect you, Pete.” Even when he was totally out of it with drugs, Tony managed to be that ‘protective papa bear’.
Peter had no idea for how long they sat there hugging each other. eventually, Peter felt Tony’s grip on his back relax, and he knew that the older man had dozed off. gently, he untangled himself from the mess of limbs. peter eased the already half-asleep Tony down in a lying position and wiped off the tears staining his cheeks.
Pepper and May finally rejoined work after four days of fussing over Tony and Peter. peter heard enough ‘mother hen’’ jokes from Tony to last him a lifetime in those four days. tony was doing much better, even though he needed some help now and then – one of his arms was in a sling with strict orders from Helen Cho to keep the injured shoulder unmovable, and he was still woozy from all the heavy painkillers he was forced to take. Peter's ribs were healing nicely and he was mostly just sore all over.
As an apology or repentant for his outburst, Peter took it upon himself to take on the role of Tony’s personal mother hen, always helping him to stand and walk, or to drink a glass of water, or giving him his pills right on time.For Tony, it was amusing at first, but when Peter forgot to take his own meds, he put his foot down.
“It's enough, kid. I’m not going to die if you stop acting like my nurse. stop giving me that kicked puppy look and come watch a movie with me, ‘roos.”
Pepper entered while the end credits of Frozen were playing to find both Tony and Peter cuddled up on the couch, hugging each other, blanket strew and empty popcorn bowls lying around.
And if she made Jarvis take a picture of them, well, nobody would ever have to know.