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The first thing he noticed when he came back to consciousness was the hand that carded gently through his hair.
He jerked, hands flailing wildly as he attempted to fight off the ghost of his attackers. God, his head hurt. He felt woozy; nauseous in a way he hadn’t since developing his powers. Everything felt a little off-kilter, and as he rolled to the side, his head fell from the soft surface it had been resting on and down toward a far harder, unforgiving one, which only increased the pain in the back of his head-
“Hey hey hey, Peter, whoah, calm down, it’s okay, it’s just me. It’s just me! You’re good, kid, you’re good,” someone said above him, and Peter groaned a little, but let himself relax instinctively at the sound of the voice.
Safe voice. Good voice. No threat. That was nice.
“T’ny?” he slurred, rolling back around and opening his heavy eyelids, trying to focus on the figure that was leaning over him.
“That’s me,” Tony replied, giving him a weary grin. His lip was split and there was a cut running across his cheek which was bleeding pretty heavily, so the whole thing looked rather grim, but still. Peter guessed it was the thought that counted. “You feeling okay? Kinda woozy? Gonna be sick, do you think?”
Peter thought about it for a second, before shaking his head. “Not g’nna hurl. J’st feel like…”
“Garbage?”
“Garb’ge, yeah.”
Tony nodded, patting him on the shoulder. “Yeah, that’ll be the drugs. You remember what happened?”
Peter furrowed his brow, trying to think back. His whole head just felt fluffy- like trying to wade through candyfloss, or catch smoke. “There was…lunch?”
Tony let out a brief bark of laughter. “Of course that’s the part you remember. Yeah, you were in the SI cafeteria, grabbing me some food. It was break, so there were a tonne of other people too.”
Peter began to nod a little as the memories cam back. “An’ then… then there was…gas?”
Tony grimaced. “Fucking HYDRA. Gassed the whole room out, came in with all their shitty guns, told me I had one minute to get down there or they’d start shooting. Honestly,” he shook his head, and had Peter not felt the slightly shaking hand on his shoulder, he would have thought Tony was more annoyed than afraid, “they’re so goddamn crass sometimes.”
Peter made a face. “Why am I here, though? Did I fight ‘em?”
“I’m not sure. I left before I could see the rest of the footage. But the last thing I saw was you…” Tony stopped, looking rather haunted, “you were the last one standing. I think it took more for your body to be overcome by the gas. They must have…fuck, I don’t know.” He shook his head, hand gripping a little tighter to Peter’s shoulder. “They must have recognised you. You’re seen with me a lot, so I guess they just thought you were valuable. Probably because you’re gonna be useful bargaining material,” Tony muttered, face like thunder as he rubbed a hand over his eyes. “God, I’m sorry kid. I’m so… fuck,” he whispered, looking away, eyes flicking up and over Peter’s head for a moment, before resting back down on Peter’s face. “I won’t let them do anything to you, though, Peter, I swear- God, I’ll torch their entire foundations to the fucking ground if they do and they fucking know it, so I don’t know what they’re thinking-”
“I’ll be fine,” Peter said quietly, finding Tony’s hand and gripping as he slowly hauled himself into sitting position. It sent a wave of dizziness over him, and he wobbled precariously for a moment before settling. “I’m enhanced. It takes a lot to hurt me.”
“Hey, hey, just lie down, Peter- you need to conserve energy. The drugs were only designed for normal humans. It’ll hopefully be out of your system soon, and you can get out,” Tony told him, pushing him back down so his head was resting in Tony’s lap once more. Peter wasn’t even strong enough to push back.
“Fuck,” he cursed. “This’s the f’rst time I been kidnapped,” he muttered.
“And I’m gonna make sure it’s your last,” Tony replied harshly, speaking more to himself than Peter. He looked pretty stricken, and his eyes kept goddamn shifting-
Curiously, Peter turned, rolling on his shoulder until he was facing the other way. He hadn’t properly taken in his surroundings yet, and the position he was lying in meant that he had his head facing the tiles of the wall
As he turned, his eyes widened a little. It took a while for his focus to shift back in, but once it did, he noted the large glass pane that separated them from the rest of the room.
They were in a holding cell; nothing more than a box, really. No features, no windows. Just like a part of an empty room had been cordoned off by glass. And on the other side…
There was some weird, futuristic-looking device. Like a vat, but completely see-through. Peter could see the water that glistened, eerily still in the light of the afternoon. It was the only thing in the huge warehouse.
A deep, primal sort of fear struck him as he took it in. It wasn’t some fancy schmancy death machine, it wasn’t intricate or even obviously threatening.
It was just water.
But that held the potential for many, many unpleasant things.
“Just concentrate on me, Pete,” Tony said, tapping the back of his head and drawing his attention back, “it’s gonna be fine. Someone will have alerted the cops, or SHIELD or something- they’ll find us,” he said, nodding his head adamantly and then taking another sharp little breath.
His eyes were wide, pupils dilated in fear. There was a constant tremor in the hand that gripped Peter’s shoulder. He looked like he was having trouble breathing.
Peter wasn’t oblivious. He knew fear when he saw it.
“We’re gonna be okay, Tony,” he said, sitting up again. He felt a little better, if still somewhat woozy. He was sweating as if he’d just sprinted a solid mile, and he knew it was his body getting rid of the toxins. He’d be okay in a while. They just had to hold out.
Tony looked down sharply at him. “I know we are. I’m the one assuring you.”
Peter smiled. “I’m all assured up, Tony, don’t worry.”
He wasn’t. Not really.
He felt like he was suddenly in too deep. This wasn’t Spiderman dealing with the problem, here- he didn’t have his suit. All he was was Peter Parker, the 15-year-old schoolboy.
Peter Parker might not be good enough for this.
Tony looked at him like he knew exactly what was going through his mind, because he shook his head and jostled their shoulders together. “They’re gonna pay very, very dearly for this,” he muttered, again, more to himself as he stared ahead of him angrily and wiped the blood off his lip.
“How long have we been here?” Peter asked, his head dropping on sleepily on to Tony’s shoulder.
He felt the little shrug Tony gave in response. “I’ve been awake about twenty minutes. They knocked me out when they put me in the van. Going from the fact that the toxin’s still in your system, I’d say we’ve been gone around an hour.”
Peter nodded in silent response, watching Tony as he stared straight ahead of him, through the glass wall and over to the tank with an almost disturbing intensity. His breathing was coming in a little short again.
As soon as he saw Peter watching him, though, he somehow managed to school it away; turning it into more of angry stare than one of fear. It was quite impressive, really- Peter wondered how much practise it had taken. “Glass is reinforced, too. Couldn’t break it. Guessing whatever…whatever that’s made of is too,” he said, cocking his head over to the tank with a little swallow, like he was physically trying to force the fear back down his throat.
Peter opened his mouth, response ready on his lips- but it never made it past his teeth, because suddenly a new noise filled the room.
A door was slammed open on the other end of the large hall, and five men marched in. One was quite clearly the leader- fancy suit and expensive watches and carefully styled hair- whilst the other four simply looked like enforcers. Huge, muscled men carrying various weaponry and all of them with expressions like someone had spat in all their faces.
“Tony Stark!” The leader called out with a smile, clapping his hands together, “how lovely it is to finally meet you!”
Slowly, Tony pulled away from Peter. “Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t draw any attention to yourself at all, understood?” He muttered into Peter’s ear, and the tone allowed no room for argument as he slowly got to his feet.
Peter watched, heart beginning to hammer in fear of what was to come as the five men made their way across the hall, wandering casually, as if simply strolling through a park rather than….doing whatever they were about to do.
“I’d say the same,” Tony began, and Peter was incredibly impressed with the complete 180 Tony managed to do in the time it took for him to turn from Peter to the glass wall and face their captors- gone was the fear, and the hunched, scared posture- here was Iron Man, Tony Stark, ready to fuck your shit up and then go home for dinner, “but unfortunately, I’d be talking directly from my ass, and I promised myself not to do that any more.”
The man simply laughed, clapping his hands together as he wandered forward some more, until he was nothing more than a few meters from the glass. “Ah, you really are like everyone says you are, aren’t you? What a delight.”
“I’d like to think I give a stronger handshake than I do a first impression,” Tony said with an easy smile, “so how about it? Shake my hand, fucklord I double dog dare you.”
The man laughed again, shaking his head and waggling a finger. “Ahh, if only it were that easy, Mr Stark, if only. I came here not for a handshake, unfortunately. I came here for information.”
Tony rolled his eyes, raising his hands to the air and generally looking exasperated. “Oh, lordy, what a gosh darn surprise! I haven’t had the ‘we want information’ kidnapping in quite a while- the past two have been a ‘we want inventions’ ones. I was hoping it’d get switched up a little bit, honestly, I was getting kinda bored,” Tony explained, stepping to the side as he put out a hand and leaned against the glass.
Peter almost made a noise; Tony had just blocked him from view, and now he couldn’t see the other man’s face.
He guessed, however, that that had been Tony’s intention.
“Well, Mr Stark, I assure you this will be far from boring,” the man purred, in the type of voice that sent Peter’s spidey-sense tingling with apprehension.
That was a good sign, though. It meant he was coming back to himself, Meant he was getting stronger.
“Tell me where my Ascension disk is, Mr Stark,” the man said loudly, looking down at his nails.
Tony stopped moving about between his two feet, pulling a face. “I’m sorry- the whatnow?”
Their attacker just rolled his eyes in mild irritation. “The Ascension disk- do not play dumb here, Mr Stark, I know you are aware of its existence.”
“I can assure you, I really don’t,” Tony responded, voice hard as he stepped forward, “believe me, if I knew what it was, I’d tell you as much just so I could spit in your faces and tell you to suck your own asses if you asked for it.”
“You’re not too good at knowing when to keep yourself out of trouble, are you Mr Stark?”
“So I’ve been told,” Tony grinned at them, rocking back on his heels and shoving his hands in his pockets.
He was irritating them, and everyone knew it. Peter wanted to scream; Tony was doing it for him, and that was the only reason. Peter had seen Tony negotiate in hostage situations before, it had been nothing like this. He was surprisingly collected, and he never ever set out to try and piss the attackers off.
Peter being present was the only difference here- and so now Tony was drawing all the attention to himself- making himself the worst guy in the room, because he knew Peter stood a better chance of being ignored if they were so focused on punishing Tony instead-
Fuck. Peter needed to get them out of here, and he needed to do it yesterday.
“I’m going to ask you once more, Mr Stark,” the voice was barely above a whisper now, and coated with a tone that truly sent shivers down Peter’s spine, “or I’m going to be forced to use… alternate methods,” at that, his gaze shifted, turning around and raising an eyebrow toward the tank of water.
Amazingly, Tony didn’t even flinch. “And I’m going to tell you once more, I don’t have a fucking clue.”
The man paused, and then he sighed, shaking his head a little. “Shame. I would have preferred not to involve the boy.”
The change was immediate.
The four guards stepped forward at the same moment Tony stepped back, hand stretching blindly for Peter as warning growl was pulled from the back of his throat. “Don’t you fucking dare, don’t you fucking dare-”
he grabbed Peter by the front of his shirt, pushing him against the wall and then standing with his own back against Peter’s chest, effectively shielding his body. Peter felt a little dizzy from the sudden jerking movement, and his vision whited out just for a second, but by the time he came back to himself, the huge guards were putting some weird green card against the glass and then sliding through the sudden opening it made for them.
“-I swear to you, I don’t have a fucking clue what it is, I don’t, you fucking shitheads, just listen to me, I haven’t been messing in HYDRA’s shit for months now, that’s what the Rogue Avengers have been doing, not me, just leave him out of it!” Tony snarled, barely even registering as the guns were pointed in his face. His hands were behind his back, gripping Peter’s arms, holding him in place
Peter was struck with it, suddenly- the sudden terror of the situation. He was in the middle of a God Damn kidnapping, and they were about to try and take him. He was weak, he was clueless, and he was, admittedly, absolutely fucking terrified.
This wasn’t looking good.
“If you don’t have it, then you still know where it is! You’ve been in communication with Captain Rogers multiple times over the past month-”
“JUST FUCKING TEXTS ON A GOD DAMN BURNER PHONE! I haven’t been discussing Avengers business, or HYDRA, Jesus fucking Christ!” Tony yelled.
The man glared at him, long and hard before there was a quiet “get away from the boy, Mr Stark,”, and the guards moved forward another step, closing them in, guns trained to Tony’s head.
Tony stared over at him, the corner of his mouth tilting up, just a fraction, almost as if he were amused. “Oh, if you really think I’m gonna do that, you got another thing coming.”
The man on the other side of the glass hissed, a hand slapping against the glass, but Tony shook his head, running with the fraction of a pause he’d managed to draw himself. “Oh, and another thing- if you shoot either me or him, let me tell you, you will never find out where it is,. You want to get anything at all, you use me. I swear to everything I have that I will not mutter a single fucking word about your shitty little disk otherwise.”
There was silence in the room, filled only with Tony’s furious breathing and the sound of Peter’s own heartbeat in his ears. “Tony…Tony, don’t,” he whispered, shaking his head a fraction, horrified. He didn’t want Tony to put himself forward- Peter was scared, but he was also stronger than Tony. He could take more, and he would take more, if it meant Tony didn’t goddamn have to, not for him-
“Fine,” the man said eventually, smile creeping up his face as he clapped once more, “we’ll put you in first, then, seeing as you’re so darn desperate.”
Peter’s jaw dropped in horror, and his hands instantly shot out, tugging at Tony’s arms. “No, no, Tony, don’t, don’t- let me, let m-”
Tony smacked a hand over his mouth before the jumbled words could get any louder, and he had one second to look Peter in the eye and say “I’ll be fine,” before a guard smashed his gun down against the back of Tony’s head and sent him crashing to the side.
Peter held on to him, stopping the fall and then spinning with it, throwing out a vicious kick as he went, because he wouldn’t let them,he wasn’t going to let them take Tony, not when the man was quite clearly terrified of what laid in store- so Peter would just have to be the one to fight instead, he’d get them out-
The kick landed, and it did its job. Both man and weapon went flying across the room; the force Peter exerted being enough to knock him clean off his feet. But he was still woozy- the spin sent him off-balance, and he found himself wavering wildly, unable to follow through and hit the next target that approached.
He was forcibly ripped from Tony’s grasp, and a guard raised his hand, ready to hit, but his arm stopped mid-swing as he heard Tony’s voice rasp through the air.
“Did you not hear me, shithead? You hurt him…” Tony wheezed a little, crawling back up to his hands and knees simply so he could shoot the guard a poisonous glare, “and I don’t say a damn word.”
“Stand down,” the man behind the glass said, and with a nod, the man released, letting Peter drop messily to the floor.
He’d failed. He’d let Tony down.
“I’m sorry,” he choked on the floor, tears pooling in his eyes as his hand reached for Tony’s across the floor. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… I’m sorry, Tony.”
Shaking fingers grasped against his, just for a second, before Tony was yanked backward roughly. “It’s okay, kid,” he called out, hand still outstretched, and Peter tried to follow, but there were two guards pinning him and he just wasn’t strong enough to fight, “it’s okay. I believe in you. Sweat it out. Kick some ass. You’ll be okay.”
The guards let him go just as Tony was hauled through the entrance, and they left a second before it closed up again, leaving Peter alone in the cell, watching through the glass as they pushed Tony forward.
“Okay, Mr Stark,” the leader began, “here’s how this works. That,” he raised a hand, pointing behind him and toward the tank of water, “is 100 gallons of water, at the temperature of about four degrees. It has a sliding roof, and on my command I can open and close it. Tell me, Tony- how good are you at swimming?”
Peter could see, even from afar, how badly Tony winced. But the reply came, effortless as always. “Actually I was my school’s 100 meter freestyle champion for like, 2 years running, so-”
“Put him in,” the man said with a roll of his eyes, waving the guards away.
“No!” Peter banged uselessly on the glass, and he could barely even recognise his own voice, it was so ragged and harsh. The same thought kept spinning- round and round and round in his head, you let him down, you let him go, you failed-
and because of him, they were going to torture Tony.
Tony struggled the whole way up, but he’d been knocked on the head one too many times, and Peter could see his balance was off too much for him to be able to do anything real.
Peter had to stop this. He had to. He couldn’t… he couldn’t let this happen.
Shutting his eyes, he breathed deep. He thought hard, about who Spiderman really was.
Him.
“You can do this. You can do this, Peter,” he hissed, eyes clenched, hands gripping his own hair as he leaned against the glass.
His head felt thick. But he knew he was capable. He still had the power. Still had the capacity.
Glass was only as reinforced as the person trying to destroy it, after all.
Another deep breath- he took a look over toward Tony, who was now struggling wildly at the top of the stairs which led up to the lid of the tank.
He punched the glass, with everything he had.
“I’LL TELL YOU!” Tony finally screamed, all bravery gone now, replaced only with the most basic of emotions- terror being the most prominent. “I’ll… I’ll tell you. Fuck- it’s under the Dorium. Just…if you type it into SHIELD’s databanks, you’ll see-”
“Tony, Tony, Tony,” the man interrupted, face almost splitting with the smile he was wearing, “do you really think we wouldn’t be aware of the booby-trapped SHIELD server? HYDRA are not fools.” He shook his head, lifting a hand as he appeared to speak into his watch. “Dan Kraig, 8-9-9-8-2. Open,” he said, watching in what Peter could only describe as glee as the tank appeared to follow his command, roof sliding open silently.
Peter made the first crack in the glass just as Tony was shoved under the surface of the freezing water, and had the lid closed over him.
He couldn’t watch. He physically couldn’t- his eyes were too blurry with tears, and his hands were too busy punching into the glass to wipe them away.
He just kept going. He screamed and punched and pretended as if he couldn’t hear Tony punching back, on a different glass surface.
A bigger crack split through the glass.
Howling in fury at how fucking slow it was going, Peter spun on his head, running to the other side of the room before kicking off and using the momentum from his run to hurl his foot into the crevice forming in the glass.
There was a bigger shatter, that time, and now, you see- now it was a race. Peter had always been competitive; it was what drove him. This could drive him
It was a race. That was all it was. To see if he was fast enough to save Tony’s life.
It was just a race.
He kicked, again and again and again, feeling his foot jerk in pain, but knowing he could continue. He had to. He had to win.
He looked up, just for a second, and saw Tony, as his banging on the roof slowly became less and less animated, and more filled with lethargy.
It was the final straw. Putting everything he had into it, Peter screamed and punched one more time.
The entire frame vibrated, and then the spiderweb of cracks Peter had made exploded outward, falling to the floor in a litter of glass.
He didn’t waste a second. As soon as he saw his opening, he forced his way through, hurtling into the hall with a scream of fury.
Instantly, the guards pointed their guns at him, but Peter had it now. He was in the lead, he was winning, and nothing was stopping him.
Rolling to the side, he dodged each other their bullets with ease, Spider-senses allowing him to move through the fire like they were simply suspended in the air.
Sprinting across the room faster than it would have taken for the two guards stood at the foot of the ladder to breathe, Peter threw himself forward, legs rising into a plank as he drop-kicked the first one into the base of the tank at a force that resulted in immediate unconsciousness. The second one yelled, swinging his gun around, but Peter caught it and yanked, sending the man stumbling forward into his waiting knee.
That nose would probably never look the same again. Not that Peter gave a shit.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Tony give a sudden spasm, convulsing in the trapped barrel of water as a hand clawed up his throat, desperate for air. It had been a minute, now.
Race. It was a race.
Leaping vertically, he grabbed the underside of the ledge that the last two guards were stood on and hauled, sending himself somersaulting up to the top. Legs in a scissoring motion, he pushed them both off the sides, one falling right off the ladder and toward the floor in a sickening crack, and the other landing with a dull thud over the roof of the tank Tony was trapped under.
Peter didn’t wait. He threw himself on top of the guard, using his momentum to roll the man off the ledge.
It all happened in less than five seconds. Peter felt a little detached from his body. He didn’t know what he was doing- all he knew is that he had to. He had to do it. He had to protect what little family he had left.
At all costs.
Grabbing the gun off the lid of the tank, he directed it toward the last man. The leader. The one with the power to make the tank open once more.
“Do it,” he hissed, seeing the blood already on his hand- his own, from the glass shards that were dug into his knuckles. “Open it or I’ll shoot.”
The man paused, eyes widening a fraction, before a smug smile curled his lips. “No you won’t.”
“I’LL DO IT!” Peter screamed, gun shaking in his hand, and he knew he was running out of time, Tony was running out of time, he couldn’t wait-
But he couldn’t shoot, either. He just…couldn’t.
He’d lost.
Screaming in something he could only best describe as agony, Peter leaped off the roof of the tank and hurtled toward the other man, kicking him in the chest hard enough to crack the sternum and send him crumbling to the floor with nothing more than a pathetic whimper.
Peter was alone. The room was silent.
There was a tap against the glass.
Peter’s head jerked up. Tony was at the side of the glass, looking at him, one hand pressed up against the wall as the other knocked vacantly.
Peter was there in a second.
“Tony, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know-”Peter cried, tears slipping down his cheeks as his hands fisted where Tony’s were flat.
Tony looked at him, and he smiled softly.
Peter was reminded of how it was said that drowning offered the most peaceful death, in the end.
On the other side of the glass, Tony knocked once more, before curling his hand into a fist, bringing his index and middle finger up straight along with his thumb, until he made a gun gesture. He pressed the tips of his fingers to the glass, and then-
His eyes fluttered shut.
Peter looked down at the semi-automatic in his hand. And then he fired the rest of the chamber at one spot near the bottom of the barrel.
Crack, crack, crack, crack-
the chamber emptied.
But Peter wasn’t giving up now.
Taking another few steps back, He dropped the gun. He wiped the tear tracks off his face. Took a breath.
Ran faster than he had before in his entire life, and kicked.
There was a deep, booming crack, and then suddenly Peter was drowning. Bowled over completely by the sheer force of the wall of water which came up to meet him, he barely had the chance to suck in a breath before water was everywhere. Horrible, sickening, freezing water. It set his skin on fire, stabbed like a thousand tiny needles, completely overwhelmed him for a second before he wrestled back control and curled into a ball, allowing himself to be pushed along by the current.
Eventually, his back hit the floor, and he rolled a few times before finally, finally the water was gone. He could breathe.
“Tony,” was the first word out of his mouth.
He wheezed, wiping the water out of his eyes, looking for another body. It wasn’t difficult to find; Tony was the only one out of all of them currently sporting a deep red jacket.
Scrabbling over on hands and knees, he grabbed Tony’s shoulder. Rolled him to the side. Smacked him hard on the back.
Tony convulsed again- before suddenly hacking up a mouthful of water and choking on the bile that followed.
Peter sucked in a breath- a proper, real deep breath- for the first time in about two minutes. “Oh my god, oh my god, Tony, thank god, thank god-”
Tony continued to splutter for a few minutes, but his hands were rising shakily, jerkily, searching for something-
Peter grabbed hold on instinct, and Tony clutched around his bony fingers like it was a lifeline.
“Urghhhhnn,” he groaned, eyes still shut against the floor before he coughed up another round of icy water and then curled up a little further in on himself, “a-a-are… are you…are…ok..”
Peter almost wanted to laugh. If that wasn’t the most Tony thing on the entire Earth, he didn’t know what was. “Yeah, Tony. Yeah, I’m okay. We gotta get you outta here, though, you gotta get someone to see y-”
“No!” Tony yelled suddenly, gripping tighter to Peter’s hand, eyes flying open, horror-stricken. “N-n-no, please… p-p-please, no-one else. You…y-y-you’re f-fine-”
“Tony… you nearly drowned. I can’t just… you’re hurt, please, I need to… I need to get help,” Peter argued weakly. He was exhausted, he was hurt and he didn’t know what to do because Tony was apparently refusing to go anywhere.
“I can’t,” Tony whispered, curling up further, eyes shutting again, never letting go of Peter’s hand. “I can’t… n-no one else…they’ll hurt m-me…I’m not…I won’t build….”
“I don’t…Tony?” Peter asked, a delicate hand moving to his shoulder, and then immediately pulling away as Tony response was a flinch and choke -off scream. “Tony- what’s wrong? Tell me, Tony!”
Tony did a full-body shudder at the raised pitch of Peter’s voice, “Kid… you g-gotta…run. They’re- they’re gonna make me b-b-build…I won’t…run…”
Peter looked down, beginning to panic once more as Tony appeared to lose touch with the real world entirely, rocking gently back on forth on his side as his whole frame shook. It was something Peter had never seen before- he thought briefly that perhaps the lack of oxygen to his brain had made him snap.Go crazy.
Then he remembered, vaguely, what he’d seen in a documentary one time a couple of months ago with Aunt May. About war veterans. How they’d sometimes have relapses, where they thought they were back in war, and hide under tables, scream, cry, curl up in a ball and look vacant until the episode passed. They’d used to call it shellshock, but now it was a proper medical condition-
PTSD. Tony was having a PTSD attack.
And Peter didn’t have a single damn idea what to do about it.
He opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say, anything he could do to pull Tony out of it. But his head was throbbing again, and he could already see a thing as his vision begin to blur out. He guessed he didn’t have long before he blacked out again; left Tony to fend for himself in the middle of what looked to be a horrible PTSD episode-
Luckily-thankfully-amazingly, though- as it turned out, Peter didn’t have to worry.
There was an eerily familiar noise above him, and Peter ducked instinctively, covering Tony’s body with his own as something fell through the roof with a resounding metallic clang.
Peter’s heart clenched. He wasn’t strong enough to fight again. He just couldn’t. He…
he couldn’t.
“Peter? Peter, it’s okay, it’s okay- it’s me, it’s Rhodey. I’ve come to save your asses. It’s okay. You’re safe now, but you gotta let go of Tony, okay, he needs space right now,” someone spoke gently to his left, and Peter looked up, saw Rhodey’s face smiling back at him.
“I…Tony’s having a PTSD episode, I don’t know what-”
“hey, hey, I think your work is done for today, right kid? You’ve done brilliantly. Saved the whole damn day. Tony’s gonna have to make you 100 different upgrades to make up for that. But I’m gonna take over, now, okay? I need to get Tony somewhere nicer, and SHIELD were right on my tail, so they’re gonna be coming any minute now.”
“Any…any minute?” Peter asked quietly.
Rhodey nodded. “Any minute.”
“I… okay,” Peter said quietly, “I think I’m just gonna… lie down for a sec, then,” he mumbled, slowly sliding on to his ass, and then to his hands, until his face finally pressed into wet floor. “Just a…sec.”
Before Rhodey could even protest, Peter was unconscious.
His hand was still gripping tightly to Tony’s.
Tony avoided him completely for the next two weeks, after that.
Didn’t answer phone calls. Sent Peter home when he tried to go over to the labs. Was constantly away on business meetings or trips.
Peter knew when there were just unfortunate coincidences and when there were deliberate attempts. He knew and he had had enough.
“Why are you not talking to me?”
Tony yelped, dropping his bagel as he jerked up and looked in shock at Peter, feet stuck on the pane of his window whilst his arms folded in front of him.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” He screamed, stumbling forward and grabbing a chair from the breakfast bar along the way. “PETER, YOU’RE 95 STORIES UP, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU D-”
“Why are you not talking to me?” Peter asked again, as Tony pressed the chair up against the glass and leaped on it in order to unleash the clasp and open the window properly, a hand shooting out to haul Peter in.
“What is wrong with you?!” Tony breathed, looking out of the window in horror as he stared at the drop, “why would you….I was just eating a goddamn bagel, I did not need to be scared like th-”
“Tony!” Peter said, grabbing his arm and holding it, desperate. “What did I do wrong? I’m sorry, okay- I tried to be faster, really, I did- but it took a while for me to be able to get back to normal, and then I had to break through the glass and beat people up and then kick through the glass again and-”
“Whoah whoah whoah,” Tony said, gaze suddenly sharpening as he turned, looking at Peter in concern, “what the hell are you talking about?”
Peter stopped, looking down. “I know it was my fault. I’m sorry. But please, don’t be mad, I tried-”
“Kid, stop,” Tony hissed, and Peter clammed up immediately, looking down at the floor.
Maybe coming over hadn’t been such a good idea after all. If Tony wanted space after everything that had happen, that was totally understandable after all-
“-Peter? Peter, are you even listening to me?” Tony asked, his hands gripping tightly to Peter’s shoulders.
Peter looked up, and shook his head. Tony just sighed. “Okay. Okay, right-” he broke off, pulling Peter into a sudden hug that took him completely off guard.
“You are so so so so so so far off base there, Peter,” Tony told him firmly, as he pulled away and then steered Peter in the direction of the kitchen. “Like, seriously. so far. It’s not even on the pitch any more. It’s gone. Out the stadium. Landed in another state. Not even on the same continent-”
Tony stopped, shutting his eyes briefly and sighing. He looked…scared? Peter wasn’t sure, but it definitely seemed that way.
“Look,” he finally said, avoiding Peter’s eyes as he turned and pulled a mug from the shelf, “I need to level with you here Peter. I am a fucked up human being. And I mean, fucked up. Morally, mentally, physically- you name it, I’ve probably gone through some intense fucking bullshit with it,” he said bitterly. “I am…bad, at life. I am not what you think I am, okay? I’m not. You saw that much when I…” he paused, tapping his temple and then twirling his finger around in a circle. Every edge and line of his posture was tense, defensive. “Well. You know what you saw.”
“I saw you nearly drown, Tony,” Peter said, frowning indignantly. “Why the fuck would that change my opinion of you, at all?”
“I mean what happened after,” Tony snapped, banging his mug on the counter before deflating a little, “which is not… never something a child should have to see, Jesus-Fuck I’m awful-”
“Tony,” Peter stopped him, face utterly incredulous now. He couldn’t believe Tony was even thinking any of that. “You put yourself forward to drown so I wouldn’t have to, and then had a PTSD attack because of it. You can’t seriously think that’s like… an overreaction to the situation?”
“It is when you were still there, and you still needed-”
“Did you think I was stupid when I freaked out over the building collapse?” Peter asked him bluntly, folding his arms.
Tony stopped, and then made a face. “Different circumstance.”
“I disagree.”
“Uh, not allowed, my opinion is worth two extra votes.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Look. You didn’t leave when I had my…whatever it was. And I don’t think any less of you because of whatever your thing is. That’s it. That’s all there is to this.”
Tony frowned deeply into his mug as he took a sip. “You are surprisingly un-freaked out by my weird episode of insanity.”
“Is that what you were expecting?” Peter asked suddenly, “for me to be…weird with it?”
Tony just shrugged. “You’re a kid. It really wouldn’t be a big reach to assume as much. I wouldn’t blame you either.” He looked up, then, and put his mug down, walking the last few steps toward Peter before folding his arms in front of him and looking down solemnly. “But seriously, buddy- do not ever, ever think I’d be disappointed in you. For anything, at all, ever. Aside from literal murder, I just assume everything else you’d do is with good intention. Even possibly murder. I don’t know, I’m pretty flexible.” Tony stopped, then, waggling a finger in Peter’s face. “But don’t murder anyone. That’s bad.”
Peter swallowed, nodding a little. “So you’re really not-”
“I’m really really really not,” Tony confirmed, before smiling a little. “You saved my damn life, Peter.”
“Technically, you saved mine first,” Peter argued, and Tony squinted at him, before grunting non-committedly, giving him a little shove as he wandered past.
“Whatever, kid, just shut your face and get down to the lab, I need to remake the bagel you destroyed upon entry, but then I’ll be down,” he explained, looking sorrowfully the breakfast which was currently smeared across the floor, before sighing and picking it up with a look of disdain. “I’m charging you for that,” he muttered, tossing it in the bin.
Peter’s face broke out into a sudden smile. “So I can stay?”
Tony avoided his gaze when he spoke next; fingers tapping against the counter as bit his lip nervously. “You’re probably gonna see that again, at some point.”
“Then you can explain to me how best to deal with it, can’t you,” Peter answered firmly.
“It’s not pretty.”
“It would be kinda weird if it was, to be honest.”
“They’re different every time. I can’t…I don’t have control over them-”
“Again, would be kinda weird if you did.”
Tony looked at him, somewhere between relief and surprise, before finally rolling his eyes and huffing out a laugh, biting down on his grin as he shooed Peter away. “You’re a freak, kid, you know that?”
“I learn from the best,” Peter chuckled, backing away down to the elevator and giving Tony had most innocent-looking grin as the man shot him a look.
“Menace!” Tony yelled after him, grabbing an orange and hauling it in Peter’s direction. Of course, Peter just caught it with ease, giving him one last thumbs up before the elevator doors snapped closed.
He was still smiling when he reached the bottom floor.