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“I’m sorry.”
“I know, Peter.”
“I didn’t mean to throw up.”
“I know, Peter.”
Tony didn’t think he’s ever seen the kid look so miserable. Not even after that one time when he’s gotten stabbed on patrol and that was saying something considering how much blood there was.
Wait-
“This is not because of some hidden injury that you thought you could take care of yourself only for it to get infected, right?” Tony, full of suspicion, asked as he led Peter towards the car, supporting most of his weight.
Peter moaned, wrapping his free hand around his aching stomach. “No. Didn’t go patrolling in two days. Didn’t feel good.”
Okay, so no infection. Given Peter’s track record, that was an incredible success. “Okay. Just checking,” Tony nodded, satisfied. “Still, you shouldn’t have gone to school if you felt sick.”
“I didn’t know I could get sick after the bite! I thought it would pass…”
The two of them stumbled the rest of the way to the car in silence, only broken by the traffic and Peter’s labored breathing. Tony opened the door and helped to ease the kid onto the backseat. “There you go.” He passed Peter a fresh brown paper bag provided by the nurse. “You can sprawl here all you want, but try not to throw up on the seats please.”
Peter sent him a weak glare in response, and Tony couldn’t help but burst out laughing because really; angry puppy was still a puppy. He ruffled Peter’s hair, taking notice of how warm his forehead felt as he brushed his curls back.
Okay, hot soup and special spider-baby meds it was right upon arrival. If Rhodey was in the tower, he could ask him to make Mama Rhodes’ famous stew. It worked miracles on hangovers, so this shouldn’t be too different, right?
“I’m just teasing. We’ll get you some soup, then we can watch Star Wars until May gets back from her insane shift, rests a bit,” he quickly added so the kid’s guilt complex wouldn’t make him feel like a burden to his aunt, “and then we’ll drop you off home. Sounds good?”
He doubted Peter would last longer than one movie in his state, but still.
“Yeah. Sounds great,” the kid smiled softly.
“I’ll drive carefully.” Tony gently shut the door and walked around the back to get to the drivers’ seat. He paid no mind to the feet pounding somewhere behind him, merely writing it off as someone rushing to catch the subway.
He shouldn’t have.
The next thing he knew, there were hands grabbing him and shoving him in the backseat as well. “Get in!” someone grunted.
Both front doors and the back door were slammed shut. Tony looked at their three uninvited seatmates, realizing in a heartbeat what was happening.
A kidnapping.
“What the hell?” the man sitting next to him called out.
The driver glanced back through the rearview mirror, his eyes sliding from the man to Tony, then to Tony’s right- shit…
“What the fuck is a kid doing here?!”
“Hey!” Tony barked at the driver. “Watch your fucking language. Little ears are present.”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter, eyes wide in fear, quietly whined, lightly nudging his side.
Tony shifted closer to his mentee, ready to both provide comfort and become a human shield if necessary. “You mind telling me the reason behind this? Because we’ve got somewhere to be.”
The men ignored him in favor of their own heated conversation.
“How didn’t you notice he was loading a whole kid in here?” the man who Tony decided to call Driver said, and if Tony were to guess, he was most likely the leader.
“Well, the kid wasn’t with him when he left the car!” the man in the passenger seat, Shotgun, snapped back. “And I went to fetch your ungrateful ass only to see him back here again already. I thought he went to give some speech or something and be there a while, not to come pick up some kid!”
Something hard pressed into Tony’s side. “Your phone, now! Watch too,” the man next to him barked.
“You know what? No problem. This is just a small hitch in our plan that can actually work in our favor. You don’t have to worry about anything,” Driver addressed Tony, starting the car and pulling into the traffic. “All you have to do is to be quiet and look pretty.”
“I can look pretty even when I’m talking.” Tony shrugged as he passed his phone and watch to the gun-wielding maniac. “Just saying.”
Driver turned around and locked his eyes with Tony, to which he wanted to reply, eyes on the road! “Let me rephrase it then. You will shut up and do as you’re told or the kid gets it,” he said. For emphasis, the man next to Tony – who he will call Backseat – flashed his gun.
Tony’s been kidnapped so many times in his life he lost the count. He knew what to expect. From amateurs looking for a quick cash from Howard Stark to terrorists, he’s seen it all – but this was an uncharted territory. The last time he’s been kidnapped with someone was with Yinsen, who was an adult man capable of holding his own, and he still didn’t make it. What chance did a sick kid have?
For now, the threat was enough to prevent Tony from spitting out some insult. He felt like utter shit for being so useless.
“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered. He must’ve picked up on the billionaire’s inner conflict to some degree.
Tony bumped his knee against Peter’s in an attempt to alleviate some of the kid’s guilt complex. “It’s not your fault,” he murmured back. “You’ll be all right.”
I’ll make sure of that.
Pushing the guilt Yinsen’s memory never failed to bring up away, he leaned closer towards Peter. “Just don’t do anything reckless and let me handle this, okay?”
“But—“
“Peter, no.” He could feel bad about the way the kid hunched in on himself after they were safe.
“I’d listen to Stark, kid,” Backseat said, taunting. “You act out and it won’t be pretty.”
Asshole.
With Peter out of the equation, it was three against one. How exactly was he going to fend off three kidnappers while keeping the kid safe? The gun also posed a problem. There was no telling if it was loaded or not, but Tony wasn’t too keen on finding out.
With the kid here, it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
At least he could count himself lucky that, despite the warnings, Peter hasn’t attempted anything yet. Were his self-preservation skills finally kicking in?
Whether that was the case or not, Tony took a deep, inaudible breath and focused on finding anything that could aid him in getting them both out of this mess.
For about another twenty minutes he just sat there, gathering info. He listened to the curt conversations for anything useful, watched the buildings zoom by, all while keeping a comforting hand above Peter’s knee.
By the looks of it, it was very likely that the whole kidnapping wasn’t all that thought through. The occasional nervous twitches and barked out answers only solidified it. They just saw Tony and took their chance without smoothing out the details.
The car suddenly jerked before resuming the smooth drive, pulling Tony out of his musing. Peter sucked in a sharp breath, his body doing a full flinch.
Driver cackled. “Jumpy?” he asked, and Tony never felt stronger urge to punch a smirk off someone’s face, because apparently the drive was getting boring and the only source of fun was to put your sick hostage on the edge.
Tony didn’t have time to open his mouth and speak his mind. The kid beat him to it.
“Okay, rude,” Peter weakly glared. “But you,” he said to Driver, “should pull over. Like, right now. And you,” he turned to Shotgun, “need to put on your seat belt.”
To Tony’s surprise, Shotgun obeyed. But Driver…
“Yeah, fat chance of that, kid.”
“I’m not kidding. Pull over.”
“Or what?”
“Last warning,” Peter said with a desperate tone in his voice. Tony had a not very nice feeling that he knew exactly what was about to happen. He shifted an inch away from his mentee.
“Ooh, I’m terrified,” Driver mocked.
Peter gulped. “I warned you… Oh God,” he said breathlessly before lurching forward and shoving his face into the bag.
Tony winced, grimaced in sympathy and began to rub Peter’s back in an attempt to at least somehow ease the kid’s attempts to suck in a breath. This brought back the memories from MIT party days.
“Did he just throw up?” Shotguns’s voice rose in panic.
“David, calm down—” Driver snapped.
“Oh my God, he threw up, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he did,” Tony piped in, sensing an opportunity.
“Oh God.”
“Pull yourself together!”
“No, you know how I get when someone pukes! I think I’m gonna… I’m definitely gonna—”
“Damn it, David—”
Driver hit the brakes and faster than Tony could blink, Shotgun unbuckled his seatbelt and threw himself out of the car. The sound of something splattering on the sidewalk followed. Tony peeked out of the window to see the man’s hunched back.
Driver pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Damn it.”
“Oh, I see how it is. You stop the car for your buddy over there but not for an obviously unwell kid that tried to warn you several times!” Tony knew that provoking the already agitated kidnappers was risky, but their poorly constructed plan already had so many cracks and this just might be the final nail in the coffin. If he did this correctly-
Driver huffed and threw up his arms in frustration. “You know what? Forget it!” he said, jumped out of the car and slammed the door closed with more force than necessary. Backseat glanced from one empty seat to another before exiting the car as well.
The grumbling outside went on for about a minute before Driver glared at the pair through the window. “This isn’t over,” he threatened in the cliché bad-guy way and walked away.
“What just happened?” Peter asked after he lifted his head out of the bag a moment later.
“I,” Tony said slowly, still processing the event, “I think you saved both of our asses by throwing up just now. Huh. Good job, kid.”
Peter smiled. “Thanks,” he said and then shoved his face back into the bag.