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The New York traffic rabble-rouses beside them as they walk down the sidewalk, on the side with all of the construction for the new condos. It’ll probably go on for the next couple years, as that’s how things go in New York, and Tony thinks about that famous quote by someone he can’t remember—“New York would be a great city, if they’d ever finish it.” People don’t exactly avoid the sidewalk with the construction, because New Yorkers can and have dealt with almost everything, but there are less people over here than there are on the other side of the street.
“It was fine,” Peter says, squinting against the setting sun. “It was fine, I’m—fine, it didn’t stain.”
“This makes me angry,” Tony says, looking at him. “I’m angry. Anger is boiling inside of me. Slow down with your gangly legs or I’m gonna trip.”
Peter snorts, but he does slow down a bit. The traffic is wall to wall, and they’re still blocks away from where Happy said he was stuck. Should have gotten a damn helicopter to pick them up on the roof of the restaurant, but Tony is trying to be less ostentatious with his reemergence into society, now that society is adapting to having half of itself back again.
“Don’t be mad,” Peter says. “Don’t be passive aggressive on twitter again.”
Tony scoffs at him. “I did that one time,” he says. “And it wasn’t even on my official account. So let’s not—let’s not.”
“It’s fine,” Peter says, and he’s grinning at him now. “And now I’m full of stuffed shells. I am stuffed.” He snorts and grins wider.
“Nice, that was world class,” Tony says.
“I’m learning from the best,” Peter says. “And also Ben used to make the best Dad Jokes so I’ve retained a lot from him.”
Tony smiles over at him, and he cherishes any time the kid brings up his uncle. They’ve had some conversations about him, but they’re rare, because Tony knows how close Peter holds him to his heart. So Tony loves it when he brings him up casually. Feels like little gems he’s collecting.
“And May is like—God. She has Dad Jokes but they’re really, like, bad—”
“I’ve heard them,” Tony says, the two of them stopping at the crosswalk. “But stop trying to distract me. Do not allow kids to throw shit at you at lunch. No matter if you’re the intended target or not. You don’t have to tell them—what you are, or even show them—Jesus, I thought people would be better and nicer after dealing with the—end of the damn world.” Tony shakes his head and watches as the cars drive by, barely creaking through the backed-up traffic.
Peter just shrugs, his hands in his pockets. “I mean, it could have been the potato salad the school makes, which really woulda stained, but it was just the frozen yogurt and it just sorta slid off and I was able to wash it out pretty easily in the bathroom. Ned and MJ helped.”
“MJ went into the boy’s bathroom?” Tony asks, as the light turns, and the honking starts again.
“Oh no, she took us into the girl’s bathroom and kicked all the girls out,” Peter says, and he smiles proudly.
“Good for her,” Tony says, and they cross the street up and under the next batch of scaffolding. “Your wellbeing is priority, not anybody else’s bladders.”
Peter snorts. “Yeah, MJ is really good about putting me first.”
“Good,” Tony says. And that’s why Tony likes her. He sighs and pats Peter on the back, gripping his shoulder. “So what do we think of that place?” he asks. “Should it move into the restaurant rotation? Should we kick something else out of the rotation? Because it makes me feel bad but Mario’s has been—”
“No way, we can’t kick Mario’s out,” Peter says, looking at him all scandalized. “The churros are top notch every time.”
“That’s probably halfway why I’m gaining weight,” Tony says, against another chorus of honks. They’re approaching a set of dead-end side streets and he’s sort of tempted to walk down there and around the remainder of the construction site, away from the traffic. At least it would be quieter.
“That’s not Mario’s fault!” Peter exclaims. And he shakes his head, frown lines creasing his forehead. “And you’re not—Tony, shut—stop—”
Tony laughs, patting Peter’s shoulder and slapping his own thigh. “You’re hilarious.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Peter says, scoffing. “No, let’s not—remove anything from the rotation. Let’s just add. Add a day.” He sounds a little nervous saying it, but he says it anyway, and he looks at Tony and smiles.
They’ve been doing this restaurant thing since Tony got Peter back. Sometimes other people tag along, like Happy or Rhodey or Pepper or Morgan, sometimes even MJ and Ned. But usually, it’s a Peter and Tony thing, something they both desperately needed after the lost five years, something they continue to need. They usually do it on Wednesdays and Fridays, and the fact that the kid wants to add a day makes Tony a little misty-eyed.
“You want to?” Tony asks, trying not to sound too eager. A couple people pass by, rushing down the street.
“Yeah,” Peter says, confidently. “I mean, if you do. If you’ve got time. You know, time to—time to spare—”
“I always have time for you,” Tony says, smiling fondly at him. “How about Mondays? Might chase the blues away.”
“Sounds good to—”
Peter trails off and gets a weird look on his face, like he smells something bad.
“What?” Tony asks, and he stops walking when Peter does. “What? I don’t smell anything.”
“Who said I smelled something?”
“Your face said that.”
Peter’s brows furrow severely, and just as Tony realizes that’s his sensing something expression, Peter pushes him out of the way. It’s a full body push, with enough strength to send him down and onto the sidewalk without hurting him, and Tony has no earthly fucking clue what’s going on until he sees the steel beam catapulting down from the broken construction pulley up above.
And then Peter catches it.
Tony watches, slack-jawed, from his spot on the ground a safe distance away. The catch isn’t perfect—it’s awkward and off kilter, but a catch nonetheless, the kid’s hands cracking and buckling under the weight of the thing, the edge of it banging into his head a bit hard for Tony’s liking. Peter’s knees bend so he can keep his balance, and he does, he doesn’t fall over, and for a brief moment, Tony is terrified more beams are going to fall, crashing down and crushing him because he can’t hold more than one at once.
But nothing else falls. Thank God.
“Jesus Christ,” Tony breathes, scrambling to his feet. “Kid, you didn’t have to push me, you coulda just fucking grabbed me and took off—”
And it hits him.
They’re in public.
Peter is Peter right now. Not Spider-Man.
Tony hears someone yell.
He hears people noticing.
He can tell Peter already knows because his face is streaked with panic, and Tony is afraid to see what’s going on around them, but he allows a moment to look and it’s as bad as he thought it was. People in cars are looking. People across the street are looking. People down the way are looking, and thank God they were far enough away because that beam hitting a normal person would have fucking killed them and yet Peter is out here on the world’s stage holding it like a very abnormal person and he’s looking at Tony in alarm and Tony’s brain is complete sludge, just sludge, just sludge—
And Peter drops to his knees, crying out in pain. The beam bears down on him.
“Help me!” Peter yells. “Somebody—strong—construction workers! Help—help me!”
Tony’s brain is like tires in the sludge. Turning and turning and kicking up mud. But he rushes over and starts waving his hands around because, uh, what the fuck, and he really just wants him to drop it and for the two of them to run away like Tom and Jerry but Peter is obviously smarter than him and a lot better at thinking on his feet under pressure, and he realizes that they have to play this off.
But still. Sludge.
A bunch of other people run over, including a hoard of construction workers, about ten or twelve of them rushing out of the site like ants.
“Help!” Peter yells, glancing up and bugging his eyes out at Tony, probably asking him to contribute to the act and not just stand there like a fucking cardboard cutout. “The pain!”
Everybody is muttering and screeching and now they’re surrounded by at least ten civilians and all the construction workers.
“Help him, help him, goddamnit!” Tony yells, probably way too loud. “It’s crushing him! Somebody’s getting sued!”
Peter shakes his head at him from under the beam, looking horrified. Tony shakes his head back and shrugs and kinda feels like he’s gonna projectile vomit all over their new friends here.
“Help!” Tony yells again, for good measure, and he moves in to try and pretend he’s helping too. The construction workers are having a hell of a time getting the beam off Peter, and Tony realizes that it’s probably one of the really, really heavy ones. If they had a couple body builders over here, sure, they could probably handle the one hundred pounders with some vein popping and teeth-gritting, but Tony is positive this is one of the five hundred pounders that usually takes a fucking machine to move. One that Peter could normally juggle if he was on his game.
Finally, the hoard gets it off of him, with Peter clearly contributing as much as he can without it being obvious. It’s so heavy for the group of them to be holding that they immediately slam it down on the sidewalk next to them, nearly taking off some old lady’s foot. It lands with a loud, resounding clang.
“Oh my God are you—”
“Son, that was—”
“Somebody call an ambulance—”
“That’s Tony Stark—”
“He should be—that kid should be dead—”
“C’mere, c’mere, kid,” Tony says, grabbing his arm and helping him up. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
“Oh my God, Tony,” Peter says, stumbling over to him and nearly collapsing into his arms. “Oh my God, thank God it got caught on the side of the building there or I’d totally be a pancake. Everybody saw that it blatantly got caught on the building there and it was totally not completely on top of me.”
“Uh huh,” Tony says, shell-shocked.
“I think I broke my—neck—”
“You didn’t break your neck,” Tony says, holding him and shaking his head at him. No kid no that doesn’t work Jesus Christ—
Peter grits his teeth, and everybody is surrounding them and chattering, and Tony wasn’t really ready for an impromptu performance of King Lear on this here afternoon.
“I mean my—I mean my back,” Peter says, as Tony is trying to help him back away.
“Nope,” Tony says. “Not that either.”
“Look, Joe, it did hit the wall here,” one of the workers says, in a thick Jersey accent, and a bunch of them turn towards the half-building to see, and Tony hopes there’s some kind of something to back up that claim.
“Thank God it did, or all of its weight would have landed on that poor boy—”
“Poor sweetheart, oh my God—”
“That was so scary—”
Most of the women have their attention focused on Peter, their mother-instincts turned up to eleven.
“I can’t be Iron Man all the time!” Tony yells. “That’s why we need to keep our construction sites—up to code!”
Peter gapes at him, and Tony sets his jaw.
“Someone needs to call the police—”
“Doesn’t he know the police? Don’t you know the police? You’re Tony Stark—”
They need to get the hell out of here. Tony is panicking.
“That should have killed him, that poor boy—”
“And somebody is getting sued!” Tony screeches, like an imbecile, and he nearly lifts Pete up into his arms as he starts to haul him away.
“Mr. Stark, we’re so sorry,” one of the construction workers says, a younger one that tries to pursue them in their leaving. “One of the lifts snapped, this is unacceptable—we can drive him to the hospital ourselves, thank God, thank God he isn’t hurt worse—”
“I’m fine,” Peter says, stupidly, glancing up from his half-prone position in Tony’s arms. Because of course, his guilt starts to win out when he hears someone feeling bad about something, or someone possibly getting in trouble over him. And Tony squeezes his side a little bit where they can’t see to knock him back into acting mode, and Peter groans and winces. “I mean. It’ll be—I’ll be strong, I’ll be—”
There are so many questions coming at them and the crowd seems to be getting bigger and everybody is talking all at once, and Tony almost wishes they had gone with his plan of running the fuck away soon as it happened. People wouldn’t have noticed Peter’s face, would they have? Shit, probably. Tony is always out with him.
“Mr. Stark, are you sure he’s going to—”
“I think we should still call—”
“How do you know this boy, is this your son—”
“Jesus, thank God it hit the wall—”
“He could have been crushed, this is why construction in this city—”
“Someone get a picture, get a picture, is anybody recording this—”
Tony starts to drag him backwards faster, and Peter is still putting on the business, clutching at him and moaning and groaning and flopping around like a dead fish.
“We got this—I have a private—helicopter—hospital, and him—him, my son—not my son, not my son—he’s fine, well—not fine—take care of it, I’ll—” He’s fucking this up too much, and he just grabs onto Peter and they both turn and head down the side street like he was thinking about earlier. Foresight.
“We’re walking a little fast,” Peter gasps.
“Uh, yeah, Mr. Academy Award,” Tony whispers, harsh. He clutches at him tighter. “Shoulda just dropped it and ran.”
“Yeah, because that wouldn’t have looked suspicious,” Peter says, as they walk around the site and towards the nearest bodega. “That wouldn’t have—”
“People were not even looking yet, buddy,” Tony says, through gritted teeth, and he’s fishing around in his pocket for his earpiece. He finally finds it when they get behind the bodega, and he shoves it into his ear. He lets go of Peter once they’re out of sight of the crowd, and instead of walking normally, Peter takes two steps and crumbles to the ground.
Tony gasps and it sounds fake, like they’re still acting, but it’s legitimate shock, this time.
“What the hell?” Tony breathes, bending down next to the kid. Pete is laying in a heap in the dirt, blinking up at him. “What the hell? Spotlight’s off, short stuff, unless—”
“Yeah, I wasn’t ready to uh—not be—supported—”
“Uh, hi, I’m supporting you, I’m always supporting you,” Tony says, hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah, that was just—being on my own feet and not holding the thing and you not holding me—kinda suddenly felt like—getting out of the pool drunk—”
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to tell me later how you know what that feels like,” Tony says, helping him to his feet, and when he takes Peter’s hand Peter yells out like Tony is killing him, and Tony grabs him around the waist and lets go of his hand fast. “What happened? Were parts of those theatrics true?” His voice breaks stupidly with worry.
“I didn’t get—the best grip on it,” Peter says, and he gives Tony an awkward and lopsided smile. “And maybe I—maybe I might have broken my wrist—”
“Jesus Christ,” Tony says, feeling dizzy, and he starts hauling Peter in the same direction they were going, quick as he can without messing the kid up. “Fri, call Happy, please.”
“Tony, it’s fine, it’ll heal up,” Peter says. He hums to himself like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t.
The phone only rings once. “Hey,” Happy says. “I’m still heading towards you, traffic finally breaking up here—”
“Drop into the nearest side street please, and you’ll run into us,” Tony says, glancing off as they walk and noticing the cars are moving faster. “I mean don’t physically run into us. Just. You’ll find us. We’ve had an event.”
“We’re fine we’re all good!” Peter yells, though he’s leaning on Tony heavily.
“He’s lying as usual,” Tony says, his mouth dry. “Should be arrested. Should be tried and sentenced.”
“Sentenced to more pasta,” Peter says, laughing at his own joke. But he hits a groove in the street and trips a bit and winces hard. “Yeah, no, I’m okay. Perfecti—perfecto.”
“Happy,” Tony says. “Get—”
Then a car is coming at them down the side street they’re just passing by, sideswiping a dumpster, and Tony is so lucky he’s got Happy, he can barely even understand the full extent of how lucky he is.
“He like, can teleport,” Peter says, as the car comes to a stop. “Okay? We need to like, discuss this and accept it.”
“What happened?” Happy asks, getting out of the car. “What? No way you were attacked. No way. I don’t believe it. Don’t mess with me.”
“Next time you’re cancelling the car appointment and joining us,” Peter says, looking at Happy with wide eyes as Tony half-drags him over to the back door. “Won’t take no for an answer. It wasn’t even something necessary—”
“Sometimes detailing is necessary,” Happy says, as they all get back into the car.
Tony scoots Peter into the middle and sits next to him, and Peter sighs, looking a little dazed. Once the doors are all closed Happy starts backing up, and usually Tony is very aware of someone’s driving, even someone he trusts as much as Happy, but he’s gotta see what the hell is actually going on here.
“Okay,” Tony says, putting on the kid’s seatbelt, and then his own. “Okay, like I said, it looked like—dammit, Pete,” Tony says, shaking his head and remembering what the hell went on. What the hell Peter did, why he did it, whom he did it for. Tony shakes his head and grabs the first aid kit out of the panel in front of them, and he gets one of the ice packs out of it, snapping it to make it cold.
“What, ‘dammit’? I’m fine. We’re all good.”
“What the hell happened?” Happy asks, looking backwards but not at them.
Tony stares at Peter, who is pointedly looking past him, looking straight ahead. Tony huffs out a breath and gently takes Peter’s wrist, the one he said he broke, and holds it as easily as he can in his hand, placing the ice pack on top of it. It feels floppy and looks—not connected right—and Tony is gonna fucking flip out and start vomiting everywhere.
“Well,” Peter says. “We—”
“We were walking alongside that godforsaken construction site because there were less people on that side of the road—”
“And then—” Peter tries.
“And then one of the steel beams or some shit came loose and Peter sensed it with his danger sense and pushed me out of the way—”
Peter scoffs and now he’s looking at him. “It would have crushed you!”
Tony ignores that. “And then he catches it and this thing is massive, Happy, absolutely huge, and he catches it like it’s a tiny little owl—”
“Tiny little owl?” Peter nearly yells, as they wheel out into the street. The traffic is still pretty heavy and they definitely get honked at, but at least they’re moving.
Peter winces, with his yelling, like it hurt his head to do it.
Tony eyes him. “And he decides that too many people have seen it so he creates a whole Shakespearian drama where it was like, braced on the wall or some shit and that’s why it didn’t flatten him like a pancake, and a brigade of construction workers marched out and barely ‘helped’ him get the thing off of him—”
“And Tony was also participating in the acting,” Peter pipes in, wincing again. “A lot. More Golden Globe.”
Tony scoffs. “Yeah, and I wasn’t great but you were very over the top,” he says, raising his eyebrows.
Peter raises his in kind. “Uh, me?” he asks, wincing again but trying to work through it. “Not me. No way, between—between you and me, me—” He winces again.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Tony asks. “What’s with the pain face? Is it just your wrist?”
“You’re saying my acting was bad?” Peter asks, blowing past Tony’s concern. “Because you were out there shrieking and waving your hands around—”
“Listen, I was perfectly—perfectly fine,” Tony says, glancing up and catching sight of Happy’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “But anyways—Peter caught the beam—and made a big deal out of it killing him or whatever, everybody and their grandma was there clamoring over little doe-eyes here—”
Peter rolls his eyes at that, and then he winces more dramatically, opening his mouth with the pain of it.
“What?” Tony asks, probably too harshly, and he reaches up with his free hand and gently grips the side of Peter’s head. Peter leans into his touch and sighs.
“Maybe it slammed me a little hard in the head too,” Peter says, and he laughs, once and then again, swaying a bit. “Maybe just a little bit. Like enough that, I’m—with the crazy brain. Just slightly.”
Tony’s heart plummets. Yeah, he did—he did see that happen. Fuck.
“Great,” he says, looking up at Happy. He looks at Peter and sets his jaw. “Great, and he also broke his wrist.”
“He broke his wrist and he has a concussion and we’re gonna be a news story later?” Happy asks, and Tony sees him speed through a yellow light so they don’t miss it.
Peter laughs again, wincing, and then he scoots down a bit in his seat and lays his head on Tony’s shoulder.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Tony says, with a sigh, and he rests his head on top of Peter’s, feeling horrible and fond and angry and protective. “We’ve been through this. You know the routine.”
“I’m not even tired,” Peter says. “I’m not even. At all.”
Tony sighs again. “Kid, just like—next time just jump with me. I don’t know why the hell you had to push me and leave yourself there—how many fucking times do I have to say you’re not expendable? Christ.”
“Listen, I get—it wasn’t even intentional,” Peter says. “I didn’t—I wasn’t sure what it was, I just knew something was going on but I didn’t know what—I knew at the last second and it didn’t feel like enough time—I don’t know I wasn’t really thinking or prepared…” He trails off and sighs too. “Caught it bad. That’s all.”
“I’m alerting Helen,” Happy says.
“You have to think about yourself too and not just me,” Tony says. “Okay? Okay? Not just me.”
“You remember I’m super strong and durable, right?” Peter asks. “Like. I could lift you with my pinky finger. You and like, you holding a car. You in the Iron Man suit and holding a car. Three cars.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Uh huh. Still. Look what happened.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine! I knew I’d be fine.”
“You have to stop putting yourself in danger for me,” Tony says, his face burning red. “Need to stop. Required to stop.”
“Honestly if I can prevent you from being splattered on the sidewalk I’ll do that every single time. I’m not gonna let you die.”
“I might not have died,” Tony says, holding his head high.
“Uh, sure. Just woulda needed a head transplant.”
Tony blows out a breath. “Hey, like, you’re not listening to me, and I don’t know if that’s the concussion or just you being stubborn or both or—”
“You’re preaching at me and you’re only hurting yourself because I’m used to it but later you’re gonna regret it and be mad at yourself because you don’t like when you do it but you keep doing it because you can’t stop yourself from doing it when you do it.”
Tony sighs, shaking his head.
“I like you alive and being alive, you’re great,” Peter says. Which doesn’t really make sense but it touches Tony’s heart, anyway.
Tony presses his cheek to the top of Peter’s head. “You’re ridiculous, you could have just launched yourself at me and not had to—you know what, we’re not even having this conversation, it’s pointless for both of us, we both do the same damn thing every single time because we’re just so set in our ways—”
“Uh huh,” Peter says, and he laughs, and Happy laughs too. Tony looks up into the rearview and sees him laughing.
“Why is this funny?” Tony asks. “It isn’t. It isn’t. We already gotta track down all of those people and watch them for three weeks to make sure they don’t suspect anything.”
“Three weeks?” Happy asks. “You mean three months.”
“And a teenager is injured,” Tony says.
“That’s me!” Peter says, once again too happily.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine, Tony, I’ve seen him in a lot of worse situations, you know I’m always picking him up—shit, there’s so much you don’t know—”
Peter goes stiff. “Uh, Happy, let’s not—” he says, huffing.
“Happy, let’s hear it,” Tony says, eyes narrowed and mind racing.
“Tony, okay, I was also gonna hide this,” Peter says, picking his head up and looking at him, and his eyes are all teary but he doesn’t look like he’s crying crying, more like tearing up because of the pain. Which is still just as bad. Which is maybe worse.
“What?” Tony asks, quietly this time, a little worried about what the hell is going on here. “What? No more hiding things from me. Tell me all the stuff.”
“Maybe other stuff, uh, later, but my other wrist is, um, definitely also broken,” Peter says, and he grins all big, squeezing his eyes shut tight. He lays his head back down on Tony’s shoulder. “Both wrists. Broken. Sorry about it. Oh man, I lied I’m so tired oh man I ate so much.”
Tony feels insane. He stares straight ahead.
“Drive faster,” Happy says. “Yeah, I hear you, I hear your brain waves.”
Tony stretches his arm down, trying not to jar Peter, even though he does kinda wanna shake him. In a loving way. And he grabs the second ice pack from the still-open first aid kit, snapping it with a sigh. Peter presents his other wrist without a word, and Tony places the new ice pack on top of it. Peter rests both of his wrists on Tony’s knee, and Tony wraps one arm around him, rolling his eyes and simmering in his annoyance at the whole damn thing.
“Next time just let me die,” Tony says.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Nope.”
“Shut up, Tony,” Happy sneers at him.
“Just let the steel beam crush me,” Tony says. “Let the rebar impale me. Let the rat villain guy—toss me off the building.”
“And the Oscar goes to,” Peter says, leaning on him harder, slotting his head against Tony’s neck.
Tony rolls his eyes.
“Oh great we left our leftovers at the restaurant,” Peter says, with a sigh. “I didn’t even realize til right now. We were just walking like stupid idiots.”
“What restaurant?” Tony asks. “That was one hundred years ago. I don’t even remember.”
“See, like, this performance? Was what I was looking for.”
Tony shakes his head again.
~
“And that’s when we drained the pool so nothing like that would happen again,” Tony says. Peter doesn’t respond, doesn’t even hum like he has been all this time, and Tony cranes his neck to look at him. “Hey. Pete. Peter.”
“Present.”
Tony sighs, and looks up in the rearview again, and Happy mouths five minutes. The drive to the new compound is too damn long.
“Five minutes, Pete, okay?” Tony says, ruffling Peter’s hair. “Okay? You hear me?”
“Copy that,” Peter says. “I’m fine. I’m—wonderful. Love stories, love story time. Love the pool story.”
“I’ve told you that before?” Tony asks, feeling stupid.
“Yes,” Peter says. “But I love it. My third favorite Tony MIT story. Behind, uh, the fountain story and Tony and Rhodey on the—on the rooftop.” He yawns and sucks in a little breath.
“You okay?” Tony asks, because he’s been asking that with every little movement, every little yawn or wince or slight noise.
“My body sleeps to repair,” Peter says, and he sounds like he’s checking out. “That’s how I heal so fast. You know—you know that.”
“Yeah but not yet,” Tony says, glancing up to see them driving through the compound checkpoints. “In a safe environment.”
“This safe.”
Tony scoffs. “Safe meaning with Helen right there watching you.”
“You’re smart,” Peter says, randomly, and he definitely sounds like he’s drifting. Tony shakes him a bit, gingerly, and Peter groans. “No more shaking me! Not sleeping.”
“Okay, Mr. Man,” Tony says, with a sigh. “Get ready to walk because we’re almost there.”
Peter seems to press closer. “Ugh I don’t wanna walk. I can but I don’t want to. Just—the two of you, just—carry me between you. Like, uh, crowd surfing.”
Happy and Tony’s eyes meet in the rearview, and horrifyingly enough, Tony knows they’re both considering it.
~
And Peter does fall asleep the second he lays his head on the pillow in the med bay, and May is already there and so is Pepper, having just left a very concerned Morgan with Happy in the playroom. Helen makes sure the bones in Peter’s wrists are aligned right so they’ll heal properly, putting soft casts on both of them. She gives him some of their Peter-level medicine, and then they all sit around his bed to sort of wait things out.
“I’m gonna go get the kids,” Pepper says, bracing her hands on Tony’s shoulders and leaning over, kissing him on the cheek. “MJ is blowing up Happy’s phone.”
“You’re gonna surprise them coming yourself,” May laughs.
“I like talking to the two of them,” Pepper says, grabbing her jacket. “Gotta find out how the senior trip plans are going, Peter hardly ever shares.”
“Don’t I know it,” May says.
“Thanks, honey,” Tony says, watching her walk out the door. He sighs, and looks at May—she’s still eating those dip n dot things, and Tony watches her for a second.
“You should have seen the way those people were fawning over him,” Tony says. “I mean, yeah, kid in danger, of course people are gonna be worried, but these people were losing their minds.”
“Could have been because of you,” May says. “But he is precious. That sweet face.”
“I feel like it was the precious aspect,” Tony says. “He gets people. Puss-in-boots pleading face.”
May snorts. Tony knows what it’s like, he knows how it felt before he and Peter were even close. He remembers seeing him go down at the airport in Germany, the way his heart sank into his gut with fear. The kid just—brings something out in people.
They sit in silence for a second, and Tony stares at him, and the way he sleeps. He always looks like a tiny angel when he’s asleep, and no one would ever guess he’s one of the most physically strong people on the earth. They’d never imagine he could catch a five hundred pound beam and only break his wrists. A normal person would be fucking dead, squashed like a bug. And that could have been Tony, if Peter hadn’t done what he did.
But still. But still.
Tony grits his teeth.
“Stop feeling guilty,” May says, not even looking up at him.
“Why would he do that?” Tony asks, throwing his hands up and letting them slap back down. “Why?”
“He loves you,” she says, simply, and she looks up at him with that.
“But he could have just tackled me out of the way and we both could have been out of the way of the thing and then he wouldn’t be laying here.”
May laughs a bit. “Sometimes he doesn’t think when someone he loves might get hurt, he just thinks about that first and everything else later.” She sighs. “He’s working on it.”
“Is he?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows.
She nods. “We’ve actually had conversations about it. Because he knows how much it would kill us if we lost him.”
Tony remembers what it was like. To lose him. To have lost him. To live in a world without his light.
“He’s just—you know his brain. He’s all over the place, on overdrive.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, cracking his jaw. “It’s just, uh—I don’t want anything to happen to him, ever, but I especially don’t want anything to happen to him because of me. I’d lose my damn mind, May, I mean, I’m losing it right now—both wrists, like, Jesus.”
“It’ll take the night and he’ll be brand new again,” May says. She sets the ice cream aside on the bedside table, and she reaches out and rubs Tony’s arm. “You know how grateful I am that you’re always there to support him. Other people wouldn’t have, other people might have left it at just superhero support or maybe they wouldn’t have even contacted him at all—but you support him in all aspects. And he loves you.”
“Okay,” Tony laughs, rubbing his eyes. “Please.”
“I just love it,” she says, squeezing his knee, now.
“You’re so calm, Mrs. Parker,” Tony says, looking at her again.
“Listen, I’ve got my levels of Peter injuries,” she says, glancing at him. “This is bad, but it’s pretty low level—remember the fire?”
Tony gets chills. “Don’t.”
“Or the emergency surgery after he’d been trapped under—”
“Stop.”
“Or when that Scorpion guy poisoned him and slit his throat—”
“May,” Tony says, feeling dizzy.
May shivers, shaking her head. “He’s tortured us plenty, and if he’s gonna keep doing this, Spider-Man, which he will—and if he’s going to keep protecting us whenever he needs to, which he will—then these—things like this, with his wrists—are just gonna be the more commonplace events. I’d rather these than—anything else I just said.” She shivers again, blowing out a breath at the memories.
“I think we’d both rather nothing,” Tony says, looking at her.
“Ideally,” May says, with a sigh. “But that’s just not him.”
“Nope,” Tony says, looking at Peter now, with a mix of frustration and fondness. “It’s not.”
~
Pepper comes back about forty five minutes later with Ned and MJ, and they all sit there talking about Peter’s greatest hits until they realize the kid isn’t gonna wake up any time soon. So Happy walks them both to their respective bedrooms, goes to bed himself, and so do Pepper and Morgan. Tony and May both fall asleep there, like they usually do, and Tony is always lamenting how much time they spend in the med-bay, and he definitely spends a lot more time here since Peter came into his life. He’s in the middle of a dream about redecorating the entire place with palm tree wallpaper when he startles himself awake.
Just in time to see Peter sneaking across the room towards the door. Tony watches him for a second, like he might be hallucinating. Peter is taking huge steps, like he’s moving over obstacles that aren’t there, and his arms are stretched out to his sides like he’s having a hard time balancing.
May is snoring like a lawn mower, as usual, and Tony narrows his eyes at Peter.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tony whisper-hisses.
Peter nearly collapses and almost trips over his own feet, and Tony is already jumping to his own, striding over there and grabbing onto him.
“Oh my God,” Peter whispers, one hand pressed over his heart. “Trying to kill me. Trying to kill me.”
“Now who’s campaigning for their Oscar?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows.
Peter shakes his head at him, eyes still wide.
“Where are you going?” Tony whispers.
Peter sighs, regaining his footing. “I want. Some yogurt.”
“Okay,” Tony says, glancing back at the clock and noticing that it’s about three in the morning. “Let me escort you.”
Peter sighs. “I might want to eat other stuff too.”
“Fine,” Tony says, not about to let him wander around on his own while he’s healing. “I’ll join. And also eat.”
A sly smile spreads across Peter’s face, like he knew he wouldn’t be able to shake him if Tony woke up, like he doesn’t exactly mind that he’s gonna come along.
They start shuffling towards the door together, an echo of so many other times they’ve been through something similar, with one of them laid up in here or the other. And Tony knows they’ll be supporting each other no matter what, no matter when or how, and he just hopes Pete starts prioritizing himself, too. Dammit.
“You need to try the muddy buddies,” Peter says, holding onto Tony’s shoulder. “The ones that me and Morgan made. It’s offensive that you haven’t.”
“It’s offensive that you put eight hundred pounds of sugar in there,” Tony says, pushing the door open with his foot. “One bite and I’ll go into shock.”
“That’s what makes it good,” Peter says, scoffing at him as they move out into the hallway, and towards the overstocked kitchen down here.
“You’re already sweet enough,” Tony says, grinning.
Peter gags, but then he laughs, patting Tony’s shoulder. “Awww, you love me.”
“Awww, I do.”
And oh man, he does.
Bad actor or not.