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When Peter crashes back into his apartment, his frazzled mind first is concerned about just how long he’s going to have to spend cleaning blood off the floorboards. He can’t risk leaving traces of his blood all over the place, and to top that off his landlord would probably kick him out twice-over if he ruined the floors. The only reason Peter can even keep this apartment in the first place is that he can get onto the rooftops so fast nobody knows for certain that it’s him who wakes up screaming from nightmares.Then, he remembers that oh yeah, he’s bleeding from a bullet wound, and that’s probably more pressing than his living situation. He fumbles around his pockets with the arm that can still obey his commands mostly painlessly, and manages to grab his phone. He fumbles twice on his phone password before he makes it into his pitifully small contacts list, and he thinks distantly back to a time where he’d actually had a contact for every single letter of the alphabet, even Q somehow. Claire’s name is at the bottom of the list, marked with a star, so that it’s in easy reach with one hand. Or at least, that was the thought behind putting it there, but Peter still has some trouble reaching for her contact while his brain is mostly focused on the pulsing pain pain pain in his right arm.It had to be the right arm, too. Swinging home with just his non-dominant hand is a lot harder than it probably looks from below. He hits call, and manages to get speaker phone on before the call connects. “Spider-Man?” Is the confused, slightly tired response, from a man’s voice, rather than Claire’s. Peter panics, and tries to say, “Uh, wrong number—”He’s cut off by a flare of panic while he instinctually reaches to use his other hand, and lets out a wince that’s loud enough that it could totally get picked up by the phone.“I’ll just… hang up.”“No, no way,” the voice says, and suddenly he sounds much more awake. “You sound like you’re in a tight enough spot that I just became the right number. What do you need?”“Claire,” Peter stresses, because this voice isn’t clicking in his head, but if they know him as Spider-Man, then they’ve got to be someone who also has gone to Claire before. And he needs to get to Claire before he passes out, because if he passes out without contacting Claire, the stupid blood will dry and then his healing factor will start trying to patch him up while the bullet is still in his arm and—His screen lights up with a facetime requests, and Peter accepts it on impulse. Then he remembers that this isn’t Ned, and Ned doesn’t even have his number anymore, but he can’t manage to hang up before the guy on the other line starts cursing.“BUCKY,” he yells, loud enough for Peter to wince at the noise, and then wince again when the first wince just shoots more pain, because every little thing seems determined to make him feel more pain, and maybe he shouldn’t have patrolled last night. “Shit– kid, where are you right now?”Peter can’t give anyone his address. He can’t. He has a secret identity to keep.“Now is not the time for that bullshit,” the man says, and he sounds stressed and angry and Peter doesn’t know why he won’t just call Claire. “Kid, where the hell are you at? I’ll come help.”⠀⠀Peter doesn’t remember telling the man on the other end his address, but at some point the phone call is taken over by the sound of rushing wind, and Peter’s just lying on the floor, knowing that he has to at some point but also feeling like he can’t take it. Maybe Mr. Stark had an idea with the Iron Spider suit.(Peter’s still never putting that on ever again.)There’s a sudden clatter coming from the window, and Peter tries his best to look up, pointing the web-shooter on his good arm at the window. When he fires, the web doesn’t even make it close to the opening. “Dammit, kid,” the same voice says, right before Captain-Fucking-America enters Peter’s apartment through the window. “You’re lucky that I was in town.”“You’re Captain America,” Peter observes, dropping his arm back to the floor. The floor which is now slightly covered in blood, or at least enough that it’s starting to drip uncomfortably onto the rest of Peter’s suit, and probably leaving a stain that’s going to be hell to clean out, if Peter can even manage it.“And you’re injured,” is the snappish reply. A moment later, a bag comes flying through the window with impressive speed, and Captain America catches it before Peter can even think to panic about it. He crouches on the ground in front of Peter, lifts his flight goggles up, and then starts digging through the bag. “Spell it out for me, kid, what happened?”Peter does his best to remember. He remembers terror, and fighting, and knowing that he’d had something to defend. He’d been so close, he thought the guy was disarmed, but then they grabbed a small pistol from their boot and then—“Ah, shit.”“How bad is it?” A second voice asks, before another man ducks into Peter’s room. Like Captain America, he manages to hop over Peter’s form on the floor, but unlike Captain America, Peter can’t recognise him when looking at him.“It’s a bullet in the kid’s arm, how bad do you think it is!?” Captain America snaps. “It’s what.”Peter does his best to smile up at the man, his mask still raised enough for his mouth to be visible. Based on the reaction, it probably looks a lot closer to a grimace.“Hey, Spider-Kid,” Captain America says sharply, drawing Peter’s attention back to him. “The bullets still in your arm, I’m gonna have to dig it out. Do pain meds work for you?”Ha. As if.Peter hadn’t known that Captain America curses before this moment. Then again, this is technically a different Captain America from the one in the comic books, so maybe he shouldn’t apply the same standards to him. The cursing, it turns out, is quite warranted. When Captain America gets confirmation and starts actually digging around for the bullet, Peter lets out an embarrassing sound that he doesn’t want to admit is a whimper. The other man, who is apparently Bucky Barnes aka (no longer) the Winter Soldier, leans down on Peter’s other side, and offers his flesh hand for Peter to grip as hard as he can, and Peter doesn’t hesitate to take him up on that offer. It feels like it takes forever for Captain America to finally dig out the bullet with his tweezers, but there’s no sound more refreshing than the clink of the bullet on the ground. “Thanks,” Peter says, as Captain America starts to stitch the hole shut. His hands are surprisingly steady as he does so, though Peter doesn’t understand why exactly he feels so surprised. “Of course, kid,” is the distracted reply.“Not a kid,” Peter finally remembers to defend.The expression that Bucky pulls in response is completely disbelieving, and so Peter glares from beneath the mask, even though this one doesn’t convey his expressions even close to as well as the old ones did.When Bucky doesn’t react to Peter’s expression, he focuses back on Captain America, who’s still stitching shut the hole in his arm. “I didn’t mean to call you, I’m sorry. I promise that it won’t happen again—”“I’d rather you have called me than nobody,” Captain America snaps, and Peter tenses because he sounds actually angry for a change, and he definitely doesn’t want to get on Captain America’s bad side ever. “You know what could have happened if nobody found you here?”Peter does, but he doesn’t want to tell Captain America, because it all sounds like some pretty shit, and definitely nothing like the way that Peter wants to die, whenever he finally does.“I’m taking your silence as a yes,” Captain America sighs. He lifts his hands, finally having finished the stitches, and grimaces at all the blood on his gloves. “But, best case scenario, this never happens again.”“I doubt it,” Peter sighs.“Then you better get some more folks on your case,” Bucky says as he moves away from Peter. “Even one day of difference, and it would have taken us hours to get over here.”“I have plenty of people,” Peter says, glancing away.There’s a small pause, and then Bucky states, “That was a lie.”“No it wasn’t!” Peter protests. “I have allies, and stuff. There are plenty of people I planned on calling before Actual Captain America.”From over where he’s washing his hands, Captain America huffs with amusement, then poorly tries to hide it with a cough. “That was another lie,” Bucky says, sounding unfairly concerned. “Kid, you know how worrying this is?”“I don’t need you to worry about me,” Peter says, and then tries to sit up. He grimaces at the still-present pain in his shoulder, and then at all the blood suddenly flowing his body, and then at the fact that he’s having this conversation at all. “I’m on top of it. Tonight was just a fluke.”“Everytime you protest, kid, it just makes this whole situation more concerning,” Captain America says. “You’re, what, 17? The hell are you doing in a shithole like this by yourself?”“I’m 18!” Peter protests, and does not mention the fact that he definitely had still been 17 when he’d bought the aforementioned shithole. “Oh my god,” Bucky gasps. He spins around, and then does his best to pace in the small area of the apartment. Peter does not tell him that pacing is usually a bit easier on the ceiling, because there’s more room, because that probably isn’t the most helpful suggestion. “What– does Fury know about this? No, does Fury think that setting up the new Avengers is more important than this? This isn’t fucking okay.”Peter, fed up with these two acting like his situation is worse than it is, shoves his mask the rest of the way down and stands up. He’s not the steadiest, but he can hide that a bit by sticking his feet to the floor. “I can handle myself. I don’t know what you guys are so worried about, but just drop it.”Bucky puts his head in his hands. “80 years, and absolutely nothing has changed. Why do I even try.”Captain America, now with a slightly steadier voice, says, “We’re worried, because we just realised that the guy who was dealing with murder charges last year was still a teenager, and that we did jack-shit to try and help. And now we know that the same teenager is crawling into an empty apartment to try and patch up his own bullet holes. We’re worried because we care.”That last word knocks all the fight out of Peter.He hasn’t heard that sentiment in… a long time. It’s been conveyed nonverbally, but hearing it outright is a whole other thing to try and ignore. And he doesn’t want to ignore it, truth be told.He tries his best to remain confident, and replies in a voice that he doesn’t intend to be so quiet, “Well, I always will come back swinging, one way or another.”⠀⠀The next three times that Peter tries to patrol, within the first ten minutes, Captain America (“Fucking hell, kid, just call me Sam”) sends out a text telling him to get back inside and take care of himself, and Peter begrudingly listens.Eventually, the bullet wound fades to just another scar on Peter’s skin, and Peter thanks the two of them one more time, assuming that after that, it’ll be it.The next patrol he goes on, Captain America does a flyby, and hurls something at Peter while he’s mid-swing. Peter yelps, sticking whatever it is to his body on impulse before webbing himself back into his usual rhythm. He tugs it off his suit, and then stares at the ball of tinfoil with something oddly warm inside.Written on the tinfoil is Take care of yourself, Spider-Man.He touches down on a rooftop, and unfolds it to find a sandwich that looks temptingly good. ‘Peter glances around the sky, hoping to thank Captain America in person, but can’t spot him anywhere. Hesitantly, he takes a bite, and then winds up devouring the rest of it, because while he’s not starving or anything, he’s been coasting barely above that line for slightly too long to feel comfortable. The same thing happens the next few nights, but when Peter texts him about it, he doesn’t get any sort of response.It’s helpful, it’s nice, and it’s infuriating.Peter hadn’t asked for Captain America’s help. He’s pretty sure that he quite loudly rejected it, after the Avenger had patched him up.A few weeks pass, and right as Peter is adjusting to his new normal, he decides to take to patrolling Brooklyn for a night, if only so that nobody can try and track Spider-Man’s patrol route.He hears clattering beside him as he swings, and the next time he’s sent upward, he catches someone following him from the rooftops, parkouring at an impressive speed. When Peter swings back down, he realises that it’s Bucky.Peter adjusts his aim, and then drops onto the rooftop across from Bucky, and the supersoldier clears the final jump before stopping, looking only slightly winded, which is impressive because Peter can swing faster than cars can drive.“Who are you actually in contact with?” Bucky asks.Peter blinks dumbly at him several times, remembers that it doesn’t show on the mask anymore, then verbally questions, “What?”“People like Fury, other Avengers, anything. Who’s on call for you when, I don’t know, you get shot again?”He’d call Bucky out for the fact he said ‘when’ and not ‘if,’ but admittedly Peter thinks the same when it comes to injuries. It’s just part of being Spider-Man.“I have Daredevil’s nurse,” he offers, because that’s a safe option. “And Daredevil. And his friends are in my contacts, even though I’ve never talked to any of them. And I guess if I could manage to get the suit off, I could call one of my co-workers? I have the other Avenger’s numbers, but that’s just because I grabbed them off my comm before I switched to a low-tech suit.”The ‘utterly done’ expression Peter half-remembers from back when he’d been lying injured on the floor comes right back, and Peter doesn't understand why. That’s still a pretty long list, even if he doesn’t know how to talk to most of the people on it. “Should I have counted you and Mr. Wilson separately?” Peter asks hesitantly.“What the hell was Stark thinking when he invited you to Germany,” Bucky says, but he says it in a way that doesn’t sound like a question. “What the hell were you– no, actually, we’ve already established you don’t think enough to keep yourself safe. Kid, don’t you have close friends? A parent? A guardian? Hell, at this point, I’d tell you to just go to a teacher, whatever you think you’re doing sure as hell isn’t sustainable.”Peter feels his brain circle to what he knows to be a tipping point, does his best to take a deep breath, and responds, “Well, I don’t have any of that, so I’ll just keep going how I’m going, and I’m sure that the news will let you know if something takes a turn for the worst.”Bucky’s expression seems to crumble for a moment, and then is replaced by a wall of neutrality. “Did Stark know about that?” He asks.“Mr. Stark was the one of the first ones I lost,” Peter says, and then throws out a line of web. Simply, he finishes, “He just wasn’t close to the last.”He swings away without another word.⠀⠀Getting a note through the window is a lot kinder than getting a brick through a window. It’s been a year since the brick happened, but it’s still nice to have a comparison to draw.The note itself is simple. The message behind it cuts deeper than Peter is at all prepared while getting ready for his shift at 9am.
There are more people looking out for you than you realised. Don’t hesitate to reach out. Stay safe.
- Cap
(PS, Happy Hogan says he misses your phone calls.)For the first time since walking out of MJ’s workplace, Peter considers spilling what had happened on that cold November night, when the sky cracked open and the world was nearly swarmed by things that shouldn’t exist.The thought of it is still enough to make his breath come in shorter, but he knows now that there are people in his corner ready to listen and comfort him, and that makes all the difference.