Heartstopper

by heartreactor

Summary:

«A eighty-six percent functional damage to the RT has been reported to the history log upon impact. That was two minutes and twenty-seven seconds ago. Friday has initiated the FUBAR protocol. Dr. Cho has been alerted to report to the Compound, as well as Mrs. Stark.»

A mission incident threatens Tony's life. Peter tries to help.

Notes:

Written for the prompt: Tony has some serious problems with his heart and needs surgery. Peter is worried and helps taking care of him afterwards, by anon on Tumblr.

Chapter 1: Trapped

“Everyone call out!”

Pushing himself up on buckling knees, Peter detects movement out of the corner of his eyes through the thick curtain of dust. 

There had been an explosion, an undetected charge that went off and shook the Earth. 

For one, as he brings one bloodied hand to the front of his protective face mask, he’s infinitely grateful for the air filtration system he had upgraded just last week with Mr. Stark, and for two, he’s even more grateful that it hadn’t been damaged in the blast. The same can’t be said for his right arm, the blood on his fingers trickles down from a gash on the back of his right shoulder. And his ears are ringing on his head.

Several feet ahead from his position and to his left, Peter spots the unmistakable red hair of Agent Romanoff and, from across the affected area, before he can spot the man they belong to, Peter catches a glittering glimpse of Mr. Wilson’s wings contraption. Opposite from the three of them, Captain Rogers’ head appears through the rubble, the blue cowl removed, a hand in front of his mouth and nose, and he squints through the thick cloud of dust as he makes a count of heads. Voices sound drawled out at Peter’s ears, almost in slow motion as everything seems to be. 

“Does anyone have eyes on Stark?”

He feels a hand press to his shoulder. Looking to his left, his eyes widen; he hadn’t noticed Agent Romanoff coming toward him. “Hey, Spidey. You okay?”

From up close, Peter realizes now that she is in a far worse condition than he is. Blood drips from a cut on her scalp, her left foot drags underneath her and Peter thinks her grip on his arm is much too tight and her breathing much too ragged. She had been closer. Peter reaches for her elbow on instinct, supporting some of her weight with his own body.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” his head bobs in an erratic nod.

“Redwing’s down. HUD’s down,” Mr. Wilson relays. his voice ringing in through the comms. “I’m blind. Gonna check from up there, give me a minute.”

“Clint?” 

“I’m climbing, I’m climbing,” Mr. Barton responds on cue. “Not all of us can fly! Don’t be fooled by the name.” A cough rings out. “Gosh, I could really use an industrial vacuum cleaner right now…”

Peter blinks. Mr. Stark hasn’t checked in yet like everyone else. 

His commlink can be jammed, Peter reasons, but by now someone should have seen him. Peter glances around the area and toward the spot he had seen him last. Or rather, where he thinks he had seen him last – the area is unrecognizable from what he remembers from just a few minutes ago and, between the rubble and debris, his sense of orientation is all scrambled and jumbled in his head. And even with his heightened senses, Peter can barely discern anything in front of his nose.

“Karen,” Peter pants. “Can you… huh, can you give me a filter thingy, you know, like… infrared or… something?”

«I’ve adjusted the feed to optimal visual interpretation of your surroundings, Peter.»

In an instant, Peter locates the rest of the Avengers through their silhouettes. Besides Agent Romanoff, who he had already known of her exact location, he sees Captain Rogers standing ahead of him and Mr. Wilson taking flight overhead. Farther away, he detects another silhouette that he realizes belongs to Mr. Barton as he makes his way up a staircase, and another one that is kneeling on the floor that gives Wanda away. Everyone accounted for – sans Mr. Stark. Peter begins to panic, his head spinning relentlessly in search of him. 

“Mr. Stark!” he calls out, a step taking him away from Agent Romanoff.

She staggers when she tries to accompany him. “Kid. We’re gonna find him. Hey, look at me…”

“Well, the good news is, we’ve found a way to the basement. All of the north section collapsed in the blast,” Mr. Wilson informed them after a few seconds. “The rest looks stable enough, but I wouldn’t be stomping around too much. No traces of Stark yet.”

“Hey guys,” Wanda sounds short-winded when she speaks. “I think I might be able to clear the air.”

“Are you sure?” Captain Rogers questions.

A pause rings out. “Yeah… yeah, I can do this.”

“Okay.” Captain Rogers concedes. “Whenever you’re ready. Sam, Clint, watch out up there.”

Slowly at first, the particles suspended in the air start swirling in a light breeze, but as strings of red energy encompass the larger area, heavier pieces of debris take flight from the floor and join the stronger gust of wind that picks up and form into a whirlwind of red and dust howling furiously in the air. Agent Romanoff steadies herself against Peter, and his spider abilities act out on instinct to stick him firmly to the floor. The whirlwind rises in the air and with a last painful motion of her hand, Wanda redirects the agglomerate onto the open field. 

Once it quietens, Peter finds her leaning forward, bending in on herself, her left hand clutching her right wrist tightly to her chest with a cry.

“Wanda!” Captain Rogers calls out as he starts on a sprint toward her. 

There’s no answer from her, and Peter is certain he only picks up her crying due to his enhanced hearing. 

“What’s up with her?” Mr. Barton questions.

There’s a beat, and then Captain Rogers kneels down in front of her. He lets out a sigh. “She’s got a broken arm,” he declares. “I’m calling an evac. Clint, fire up the Quinjet. Sam—”

“I see a boot,” Mr. Wilson cuts in. “Three o’clock. The pillar must have caved and taken the floor with it. He’s down there.”

Karen promptly shifts the feed, giving him a clear view of the Iron Man suit though the pavement as well as an in depth analysis of the structural integrity of the area around the cave in. It looks like there have been multiple explosive charges after all, and the entire north side of the warehouse had taken the brunt of it. In spite of the readings, Peter starts on a sprint.

“Wait, kid!” Mr. Wilson calls out to him. “The rest of it might yet still collapse.” 

But he’s not listening. He sees it in front of his eyes, he knows the math; and yet, he also knows that if there’s anyone that can go down there without provoking a major collapse, it’s him. “Karen, can you-can you check in on Mr. Stark?”

«I’m trying, Peter, but Friday’s connection is spotty. It seems the Iron Man suit fell back into the hibernation protocol.»

“Hibernation protocol?” Peter lets out, his sprint coming to an abrupt stop when the edges of the pavement start giving under his footsteps. He glances around and up, looking for a safer path down there. “But that’s… That’s not supposed to happen unless… energy levels become critically low,” he thinks out loud, and to his horror Karen confirms it.

«A eighty-six percent functional damage to the RT has been reported to the history log upon impact. That was two minutes and twenty-seven seconds ago. Friday has initiated the FUBAR protocol. Dr. Cho has been alerted to report to the Compound, as well as Mrs. Stark.»

Not good. Not good, not good, notgood.

“Queens!” Peter hears a shout from behind him. When he turns around, Captain Rogers is standing there, wary of the weakened floor and distributing his weight as if walking on ice. Had he been calling him? Oh God, had Peter spaced out? No spacing out! Spacing out is very, very bad right now! “We got to find another way down!”

Peter looks at him wide-eyed and shakes his head. “No, no, no-no, you don’t get it. We don’t have time for peddy-paper right now.” – No time for spacing out either, dude, so focus!  – “Look. The reactor is not functioning properly right now. The armor’s energy reserves are below critical, and once they reach zero, he won’t make it out. Time is something we definitely don’t have.”

“We have to think about this,” Captain Rogers warns. “One wrong move and we’ll be burying all of us alive.”

“I’m thinking about this,” Peter counters. “And I’m thinking about… with all due respect, Sir, you’re too heavy, And Mr. Wilson’s wings don’t do well in small spaces or have enough power to lift the armor deadweight. And also, Wanda is hurt. I’m small, and I’m strong, and I’m also thinking those two beams look sturdy enough to serve as an anchor if it’s necessary.”

“Alright, Spider-man,” Captain Rogers concedes. “We do it your way.”

Peter nods to himself and as he turns back around, he hears Captain Rogers requesting Mr. Wilson to aid Agent Romanoff and Wanda back into the Quinjet. But Peter is already focusing on his conversation with Karen to try to figure out the best path to approach. His fingers wring with nervous energy when Karen highlights the weaker spots with a no-touch red, and, man, there’s so many of them!

“Okay,” he hypes himself up, “okay, we can do this!”

With a flick of his wrist, he launches a string of webbing to one of the beams he had mentioned and hoists himself up from the floor. He will need a bit of balance if he wants to touchdown outside the red in the lower platform – not that much!... wait, wait, okay… one more, and… please, don’t fall like a sack of potatoes… There’s a crack where he lands on all fours, particles of dirt falling from the unmade ceiling. But it stills once he does, too. So far, so good. He only has to make it an extra twenty feet now. 

The hard part is over. 

Except that, when he looks over at Mr. Stark, Peter finds the armor stuck under a collapsed column. Peter gulps. Dang it, spoke too soon…

Peter grits his teeth. He can’t back down now. He has to make it there and pull him out from under the rubble. Mr. Stark’s life quite literally depends on it. He looks around again, checking for the weaker points’ locations once more before getting back on his feet. He makes slow but steady advances toward the armor, stopping every time the floor rumbles underneath him and rerouting his course. The seconds tick by in his head, his own anxiety growing as it sinks in that they’re running out of time.

Then, finally, his left hand wraps around the armor’s right jetboot. “Mr. Stark? Can you hear me, Sir?” Peter asks as he steps forward once more, his other hand finding the right gauntlet under the rubble. 

Mr. Stark is lying on his chest. The large block of steel and cement laying heavily on his back traps him underneath. Peter can see the head still firmly encased by the helmet on the other side, but his right arm seems to be trapped underneath it. The metal plates are scuffed past beyond color recognition and dented inwards in several places. He had taken part of some Iron Man armor upgrades to know Mr. Stark had taken precautions for this kind of situation with a number of protective layers, but the suit is already on its last breath. He can only hope the physical barriers to have been enough to stop him from being crushed under the weight.

«I detect a pulse. But I would advise you not to dawdle now, Peter.»

“Right. I know, I know,” Peter says. “But, huh, I don’t know… Huh, can I move this thing? I mean, I’ll have to, but if I do…” He’s thinking about the entire wall crashing down on them like a house of cards in a chain reaction if he does this wrong. Or worse, breaking through the floor underneath them and being swallowed whole into a lower level of the basement. They would be done for. The pause on Karen’s answer only spikes his nerves forward.

«I’m afraid I can’t calculate an optimal way to shift it, Peter. A structure of that size and weight would surely damage the structure underneath no matter where it falls.»

Not okay, not okay, notokay, notokay.

Peter blinks, a breath caught in his throat. “Okay, so… We don’t let it fall,” he wheezes out, his voice acquiring a falsetto that reverberates unpleasantly at his ears. “I can-I can… lift it, you know, just a little bit and set it down some place else. You know, slowly, and then… That could work, right?”

«Possibly.»

Peter doesn’t like the sound of that. He had asked Karen once not to give him explicit high percentages of failure. The ninety-nine-nine-nine-nine always made him break out in a nervous sweat. So he asked her not to give them to him… The alternative doesn’t help calming his nerves at all, though.

He sniffs. Well, I’ll have to try something. If he doesn’t do anything, Mr. Stark will surely die; if he does he might still save him. And if he does and fails, he’ll only be digging their grave so much faster…

“Hey, Queens,” Captain Rogers’ voice rings out through the comms as Peter puts his shoulder to the broken column, “what’s the status down there?”

“Well, huh,” he breathes out, starting to lift it heavily with his knees. The metal plates whine underneath him as the weight is lifted from them. “Mr. Stark is unconscious. There’s some rubble trapping the suit. Working on releasing it now.”

Peter puts more strength on his knees and straightens his back slightly to get a better grip of the structure behind his neck. 

There’s a sliding noise coming from behind him.

“No, no-no-no, no-no, don’t fall, please, don’t.” A string of webbing is launched from his free wrist to catch the boulder that had just dislodged itself from the precarious perch it had been on. Peter doesn’t save the contents from his cartridge to stick to the boulder and tug it back against the larger column of cement before it crashes to the floor. And then some more to stick it in place. From the opposite side, he hears a similar noise, but lowers himself in time to stop anything else from moving. “Dammit,” he curses.

“What’s that noise?” comes Captain Rogers’ question.

“Nothing,” Peter answers breathlessly. “It’s nothing. We’re fine. We’re good.” Except that I could use a few dozens of extra hands right now… 

As much as he looks around, he can’t find anything sturdy enough to take this weight, and moving it any more is starting to get out of the question. If only he could move Mr. Stark from underneath… Maybe if he puts it back where it was before he can still avoid a major collapse. 

“Hey, huh, Captain, Sir. Are you still there?” he asks.

“I’m here, kid,” Captain Rogers confirms, “what do you need?”

Peter lets out a breath. It isn’t from the weight, but his muscles are starting to strain. He’s anxious and the ticking seconds in his ears are ringing louder, making him feel even more stuck and unhelpful. “Remember those beams I told you about? I can’t get a clear shot from here. But, if it’s not too much to ask, I could use an extra hand to get Mr. Stark out of here.”

“Can you shoot me a line?” 

“Yes,” Peter responds, “I have a shot, but you’ll have to catch it. And if you could find an anchor, it would be awesome. You know, just to be safe.”

“Got it. Whenever you’re ready.”

Peter nods to himself and readjusts his grip on the block of cement to free his right hand. “Okay, Karen. I need the strongest web style you've got. You know, like a rope. The stringier, the better.” The menu flashes in front of his eyes, and after a small spin of his options, a shooting style is selected. Okay, okay… this will empty most of the right cartridge… I’ve got one shot. No pressure, right? He brings his hand up, the pillar slips slightly on his shoulders for a moment and he has to secure it back in place, and then tries again – left, left, right, a little bit up… maybe not so much – and shoots.

He lets it fly until the reserve flashes yellow, and then some. Just a little bit more.

“Got it!” Captain Rogers’ voice resonates through the building itself more than the comms alone. Peter stops the flux on cue, the capacity light just shifting to red. Oh boy… He waits, hoping he still has enough for a miracle. “It’s secure!” Captain Rogers informs him after a beat and an incredibly cold sweat that runs down all of his spine.

Peter then uses a great quantity of webbing to strap the rope to Mr. Stark’s armor. He can’t reach to extend the coverage much above the waist given his position, so… it’ll have to do, I hope. “Ready when you are,” Peter echoes.

At a count of three, the line tenses; metal screeches against stone and cement, and Peter has to fix his grip on the column to hold it in place as the armor comes free from underneath, thankfully intact. Peter had feared that debris had pierced through, or that it had come undone at any time between the explosion and the fall. But his relief at seeing the helmet through is short-lived. 

At that moment, the no-touch red areas Karen had highlighted previously start flashing menacingly on his feed. “Stop, stop, stop-stop-stop, stop,” he lets out, his eyes widening in fear. 

The dragging stops, but it does nothing to stop the warning lights in front of his eyes. The ground shakes under his feet. No-no-nonono. Seconds start ticking a lot faster in his head now.

“What’s going on?”

Peter feels lightheaded. “Well… I think this is about to go down.”

“Listen, kid. You have to get out of there right now. Tony is secure,” he hears Captain Rogers’ voice coming from far away through the comms, echoing. Tony is secure, Tony is secure, Tonyissecure. 

Except, that he isn’t. Looking down at the armor, limp and helpless at his feet, Peter knows Mr. Stark isn’t any further away from danger. Peter is fast and all he would need is a clear shot to one of the beams to hoist himself out of here. But even if he can lower this monolith and make a sprint for safety, there’s nothing assuring him that they could haul Mr. Stark up. The floor could give, the ceiling could collapse, the web could snap. He can still go under. They might still lose all chances to rescue him on time.

If the cave in doesn’t kill him, then the decreasing power reserves will. 

Peter almost wishes for whichever one is the fastest. The thought of Mr. Stark trapped down there and in an insufferable amount of pain, waiting to die… 

Peter blinks away the blurriness in his eyes. He can’t die. He can’t lose him – oh God, please – not him, too… Not here. Not like this. He has to think of something. He doesn’t have much time left. He inhales, exhales, his eyes sweep the surrounding area of flashing lights, dirt and debris coming undone and trickling to the floor. 

Putting out his left hand, he mirrors the strap he had done on the lower half of the suit over the back and shoulders with a thick string of webbing, the line still hooked to his wrist. He can’t be sure of what will happen when he sets the column down, so he prepares himself for a quick evacuation – or so he hopes… He had managed to jump to great heights with a set of weights, but he had never tried to do it carrying a body. Much less a body encased in metal armor. He won’t be leaving their escape plan to something he doesn’t know if he can or can’t do. But the webbing is strong, he had stopped cars with this thing. It’s a better plan to stick to what he knows.

“Hold fast!” he shouts out in warning.

Then, it all happens at once. Lowering the column, slow and carefully, something comes loose from above. Peter hears it more than sees it. And without sticking back long enough to make out the shape or size of the boulder, Peter turns on his heels and darts on a sprint. His left hand grips around the string of webbing, the rope in the hands of Captain Rogers’ tensing again and the scrapping sound of metal against rock joining the cacophony of crashing and crumbling. With one last sprinted step, Peter leaps up high, the line of webbing stretching from his left wrist and another string thinning out from his right. The other end sticks to the beam overhead, while his end thwips out of the shooter the moments it runs out. 

Crap. 

His stomach drops.

In a panic, his fingers grasp for air, fumbling helplessly for a fraction of a second. By miracle or the grace of any god that might have listened to his internal screaming, his fingers wrap around the absolute end of the line in his descent, and he grips it tightly.

Allowing himself a moment to breathe, Peter closes his eyes and lets out a heavy breath. 

Then, he looks down. 

The crater had enlarged, both to each side and down. Walls and large pieces of the floor had broken and crumbled, the level he had just jumped from had vanished into a pit of dust and rubble. Below him, strapped to him by the makeshift webbing harness at the shoulders, is Mr. Stark. This time, the sigh is of relief.

“Crazy kid,” Mr. Wilson’s voice rings in his ear.

 

---

 

With the collective effort among Peter, Captain Rogers and Mr. Wilson, Mr. Stark was carried in armor into the Quinjet. Once everyone was settled and ready to go, Captain Rogers and Mr. Wilson stepped out. “The whole area is a hazard,” Captain Rogers said to the rest of them. “There might be more explosive charges, or worse. We’re going to wait for SHIELD to seal it.”

Currently, the Quinjet zooms at full speed over Missouri, heading to the Compound. Mr. Stark lays unconscious and still in the suit. The only thing Peter had dared to do had been to peel the faceplate open, afraid that he wasn’t breathing. Dried blood glued to his face, trickled from his nose and several cuts on his forehead. But hadn’t it been for it and the apparent grimace on his lips, Mr. Stark looked almost peaceful, sleeping. 

Peter watches him attentively, his own mask gripped in his hands as he waits. 

“Peter,” he hears Agent Romanoff from where she’s sitting, both of her feet on the ground despite the sprain on her ankle. She watches him attentively, her eyes uncharacteristically soft. Had she been calling him? “How’s the arm?” she motions with her chin. 

“It’s… It’s fine. It must have probably closed by now.” That’s only a half lie. The bleeding had stopped quite quickly after the cut, but he had felt it reopen with the effort to lift the armor, warm blood trickling out and soaking the fabric of his suit. But at that moment, it hadn’t mattered. All it mattered was to get Mr. Stark the help he needed. “It’s fine.”

She watches him, unconvinced. “You did good, kid,” she says, and he knows it had been meant to calm him down, but it doesn’t. He blinks. “He knows that.”

 

---

 

It isn’t long after Mr. Stark had been taken to the medwing of the Compound that the double doors open wide to reveal Mrs. Stark, flushed and out of breath. Her eyes investigate the room quickly before laying on the scene before her. Mr. Stark laid on the table, still fully clad in his suit, except for the faceplate that Peter hadn’t remembered to collect on their way over from the Quinjet. Dr. Cho stood there, preparing a handful of things Peter couldn’t bring himself to enumerate and her team were currently on the other side of a door opposite from him preparing for surgery. 

As soon as they had arrived at the Compound, Friday had conducted a number of scans at Dr. Cho’s request, and the preliminary results had pointed to several points of concern. Peter had only caught that tangentially from overhearing what Dr. Cho had relayed to her team in terms of planning; he had grown increasingly more concerned with Mr. Stark’s heartbeat.

Seeing Mrs. Stark step into the room, Dr. Cho looks up from her tray of needles and injectables, and comes forward. 

“I have it,” Mrs. Stark declares at the questioning look and holds out a replacement RT. “I came as soon as I could. I thought…” she shakes her head as she approaches the table, and her eyes fall on Mr. Stark’s face, her own mirroring the panic Peter feels. “We need to replace it yesterday.”

Passing the device to Dr. Cho, Mrs. Stark’s fingers glide over the armor’s chestplate, brow furrowed and lips pursed in concentration, evidently knowing what she’s searching for, but the battered condition is making it harder to find. Her index and middle fingers slide under a small crevice at the collarbone and press hard against it. There’s a loud click – or maybe a click just loud enough for Peter to hear it – and she pulls it toward her.

It moves, only fractionally. “You can’t make anything easy, can you?” she lets out a sigh that sounds too much like a sob. Her fingers grip harder around the edges, slotting them further into the wider crevice, and she pulls at the metal plate again, her arm shaking.

“I can try,” Peter finally finds his voice as the pieces in his brain fall into place that this is something he can do.

Mrs. Potts glances at him, at his hands, her eyes widening when she sees the bloodstains. But the desperation is clear most of all. She lets out a heavy breath and nods. “Okay, okay… just…”

“Don’t let it break on the inside,” Peter finishes for her with a nod.

Mrs. Potts moves her fingers to hold the metal plate open, and they switch places. “Right.” Peter feels her hand on his shoulder, he feels the shake as well as hears the frantic heartbeat in her chest, that just so happens to match his own. Reaching in, Peter grips it tightly in his fingers, his nails digging in despite the fact that his stickiness would have been sufficient to hold him fast to the outside of a flying airplane, and he pulls it right out. 

Having retrieved the device from Dr. Cho, Mrs. Stark steps around him and makes quick, practiced work to slide the RT from its holding clasps and remove it from the socket entirely. 

Peter had seen it before, he had a basic understanding of how it works from the quick crash course Mr. Stark had given him when he asked about it, and he knows how essential it is in his mentor’s life, but Peter had never seen it out of his chest – or more specifically, he had never seen the gaping hole it left on Mr. Stark’s chest after being removed. All he ever knew was the faint blue circle of light that always existed under his shirts. 

Seeing him without it is a frightful experience entirely.

Mr. Stark’s breath hitches in the fraction of second that takes Mrs. Stark to slot the replacement RT into place, his face expression contorting with pain. Then, as the device clicks into place, a whine escapes his lips, his eyes open wide in a frantic jolt, looking everywhere, his arms trash. But within the heartbeat, and before any of them can jump into action, his eyes roll to the back of his head and he falls back down unconscious. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, both of you,” Dr. Cho requests as a few doctors walk back into the room after the commotion.

“What’s… What’s going on?” Peter asks.

“I’ll walk you out,” Dr. Cho offers, which Peter recognizes as an invite to leave faster. “It’s better if we talk outside and leave my colleagues to prepare Tony for surgery.”

The door falls shut behind them, Dr. Cho makes sure of that, and then turns toward them. Peter glances from one woman to the other when Dr. Cho’s attention falls on him. “Peter, I would advise you to take a moment to check up with the other doctors. I know that you’ve sai—”

“I am fine,” Peter insists.

“Yes. You’ve mentioned,” Dr. Cho placates patiently. “But, allow me to remind you that this is exactly why we’re here, and Mr. Stark has left us instructions for this specific event.”

“But…”

Mrs. Stark places a calming hand on his left shoulder. “I’ll see to it that he doesn’t slip away without a proper check up,” she says determinately and a flush creeps at his cheeks at the statement. He hadn’t wanted to burden Mrs. Stark with himself on top of everything else. She has enough to worry herself now; she shouldn’t have to worry about him as well. “And I’ve also informed May about what happened. She said she would be coming to pick you up after her shift. I’m sure you would like to clean up and change before she arrives,” she points out. “Helen will come find us as soon as there’s anything new.”

Peter nods slowly, deciding against arguing at the door where Mr. Stark is currently unconscious and waiting on Dr. Cho to walk back in. 

“Of course, I will,” Dr. Cho offers with a kind smile. “In the meantime, I believe Friday already forwarded the scans to you, Pepper, as well as my insights. Dr. Wu isn’t currently in the country, but we have alerted him to keep himself available should we require to contact him.”

“Alright,” Mrs. Stark nods. “Thank you, Helen.”

Dr. Cho gives her a small smile. “I’ll see you both later, then.”

Chapter 2: Checkmate

Despite his insistence, Peter and Mrs. Stark only forked ways after he had been released from the medwing. 

Peter was fine. He had only sustained a few minimal scuffs and bruises on top of that major cut on the back of his shoulder, after all – nothing his healing factor couldn’t handle, really. His bruises, even the biggest one on the back of his neck from holding that monolith up, had already acquired a greenish undertone at the edges, and the scuffs were barely noticeable anymore underneath the clots and dried blood that clung to his skin. 

Both facts greatly caught the attendant by surprise. She was new, Peter realized, an intern. Just like him. Sonia, Peter took a mental note.

While Sonia performed a thorough check-up, Peter overhead Mr. Barton relaying everyone else’s status to Ms. Romanoff from one of the adjacent rooms. Wanda was undergoing a bone fixation procedure concurrently to Mr. Stark’s operation; hers was an endlessly simpler procedure, but between the two, along with his and Ms. Romanoff’s check-ups, the medical team had their plates full. 

Wounds and reflexes assessed, Peter assured her that a suture wouldn’t be necessary, not with his enhanced healing. His organism tends to overreact quite extensively to anything foreign, anyway; so much so, that the absorbable suture types are useless on him with how fast it disintegrates them, and the non-absorbable types are just bothersome with how it takes them as a challenge instead. Regardless of materials and stitches pattern, any suture she could have done would either be falling down on their own or needing to be removed by the end of the day. 

She didn’t take his word for it, but after checking with one of the regular physicians that was more than accustomed to Peter’s weirdness (Peter really liked Joel and his spider-themed jokes, he was hilarious), she cleaned up the wound, and he was released.

While Mrs. Stark sticks to the waiting area of the medwing, Peter heads toward the residence quarters of the Compound and toward the bedroom that had been assigned to him for when he needed to spend the night, or for occasions like these when all he needed was a good wash and a change of clothes.

Peter had stared at Mr. Stark googly-eyed the first time he casually mentioned ‘his bedroom’ after a particularly harsh training session with Ms. Romanoff. He had thought that, since he had politely declined the invitation to join the Avengers a few weeks before that (which he now knows hadn’t been a humility test, to his greatest chagrin), the plans had been rendered ineffective. Although, with or without Aunt May’s interference (and Peter had been left with the nagging impression that it had been with, a very great with, which had been embarrassing), Mr. Stark came forward with a different proposition only a few days from that. 

The internship was solidified as something real, instead of acting in as a cover-up for Spider-manning alone, and Peter couldn’t say no to the chance of walking into Mr. Stark’s lab. He had been fine fabricating his webbing at the school chemistry lab – for the most part; he knew he was exploiting a technicality… and he had been lucky that he hadn’t been caught. And, most importantly, he’d get a better understanding of the suit Mr. Stark designed for him so that he wouldn’t need to ask Ned for help all the time for the programming parts he didn’t understand yet. 

Peter peels off the suit that he hadn’t bothered adjusting after the check-up, jumps in the shower (completely forgets about the scarring cream Sonia had applied, feels guilty when he watches it go down the drain), puts on some clean clothes and leaves to join Mrs. Stark.

He sits there mostly quiet as the hours pass.

He finds himself stopping his knee from bouncing every so often, not really certain of how long he had been doing it. He distracts himself with his phone, puts it down after opening and closing the same social media apps without looking at any of the loaded content, puts it down on the chair beside his, picks it up when it pings with a notification – rinse and repeat. 

On occasion, catching the subtle vibration of Mrs. Stark’s phone before it blares out ringing, he glances up. After Mrs. Stark had assured him he could stay seated when he asked if she preferred some privacy to take her calls hours ago, he doesn’t so much as flinch every time it happens now. Perhaps, Peter thinks, she appreciates the company as much as he does. Even if Peter hadn’t been more of a presence. 

Peter had been introduced to Mrs. Stark – Miss Potts at the time – a couple of weeks after Mr. Stark started mentoring him. Officially, of course. Peter had known of her before, and not just from the usual media coverage surrounding Stark Industries, and Mr. Stark in general. Peter hadn’t taken long to discover that his mentor was a bit of a loose tongue when they started tinkering with gadgets in the workshop. It wasn’t anything blatantly compromising, but Mr. Stark would comment on seemingly unrelated things. He would talk about her, about Colonel Rhodes, about the Avengers, and a small collection of different things from when he had been in MIT. And Peter had absorbed all of those small factoids, the real behind the myth, like a sponge.

It was, well… weird at first. But, then again, nothing about the last couple of years has been normal.

Spider bite aside, it has been one year and ten months ever since Peter donned on the suit and mask for the first time. A lot has changed ever since; he might even say that everything has. The civil status, for one – unrelated to him. And the fact that he had gone from stopping grand theft bicycles and rescuing cats from trees (that happened one time!) to tagging along with the collective of the Avengers for the biggest part of the last five months – that concerned him entirely. 

He tries to tune out the conversations as much as he’s able – mostly work-related things, he realizes, but there had been a longer call with Colonel Rhodes a while ago, too, – trying to focusing on something else – mostly the chat thread with Ned once he showed up, though he refrains from telling him everything that’s happening at the Compound. 

News of the facility blow up is spreading like wildfire and trending on several social media platforms – which he only notices after Ned points it out and sends him a few screenshots of the fact since he had glazed over his own feed before. There are mentions of the Avengers, and the tags are filling up quickly with claims and theories and rogue photographs and videos that might as well have been from any other occasion. The facility was hidden in the mountains, the stereotypical bad guys hideout, miles away from the closest town; not a suburban area as some of those grainy videos suggest. He closes it, sends a laughing emoji to Ned’s claim that someone is clearly desperate for the likes, and puts his phone aside.

He doesn’t pick it up for a long while.

Not until it pings four or five times in quick succession. His chat thread with Ned had quieted after a couple more texts from Ned, but Peter clicks back from it to find five unread texts from Aunt May – he checks the time; he hadn’t noticed that it’s past 7:00 PM, which means her shift is over. 

Peter notices she had dropped him a few texts before, asking about him, if he’s okay, and there’s a pang of guilt in Peter’s stomach for not noticing them before now, and now she asks him the same thing, and she tells him that she will be driving upstate and meet him here as soon as she can. The traffic must be awful, he thinks with another pang of guilt for making her come all this way. He drops an assurance that he’s fine, fit as a fiddle, and stops himself from elaborating further from ‘Nothing yet’ when she asks about Mr. Stark.

He’s one word away from blowing up himself, crumbling down, sinking underwater. He can’t stop replaying it in his head. If he had acted sooner, if he hadn’t hesitated when he was faced with the situation of the fallen column, maybe… if he had been faster to pull Mr. Stark out from under the rubble… A matter of seconds could make a significant difference. A matter of seconds could be the difference between—

“Pete.”

When he looks up, Ms. Romanoff stares at him from across the waiting room. She had walked in and taken a seat at some point; Peter hadn’t seen her coming in at all. “Hum?” is all he can manage with his throat constricting around a colossally huge lump that he can’t possibly swallow.

Ms. Romanoff offers him a reserved smile. “Wanda was wondering how much Spider-man charges for an autograph. The cast is much too blank and ugly. Her words, not mine.”

It’s the lightest the atmosphere in the room gets. 

Colonel Rhodes arrives shortly after that. He comes into the room, acknowledges everyone with a nod, and takes a seat on the other side of Mrs. Stark. The conversation is brief, spoken in hushed, rushed tones and silent stares. While this is Peter’s, this isn’t the first time they had been in this situation. The thought doesn’t contribute to quieten the growing anxiety in his chest. 

As silence falls again, quieter this time, tenser, deafening quiet, Peter resumes the nervous cycle: picks up the phone, checks the chat, closes it, opens it again, reloads it – there isn’t anything new from May yet, she must still be stuck in traffic, the last texts from Ned are still unread, though he hadn’t added anything else. As he reopens the app again, and he selects the thread with Ned to answer him at last, another thread shoots up to the top with a notification. 

‘How many limbs attached?’

He hadn’t said anything to MJ yet, either. Part of him is certain that she had been in touch with Ned before now, though it doesn’t do anything to lessen the guilt. He has been downright terrible at reaching all of them, but he can’t bring himself to focus on anything for too long. He sniffs, clicks on the thread he has with her instead and types, ‘Still the eight.’

MJ replies with a ‘Cool’ almost instantly. Peter doesn’t think he can go into much detail of what’s happening now with her, either, and he’s thankful when she doesn’t ask. Instead, she talks about Decathlon. And about some rude customer that showed up at her mother’s shop today. And then, Ned comes back online, and they switch to the group chat for a while.

The other Avengers come and go at random intervals. First with Mr. Barton, who slips into the room and plops down beside Ms. Romanoff. A few words are interchanged between the two; Peter tries to keep his focus on the chat with Ned and MJ, but he can’t help overhearing when they are sitting that close to him. 

Captain Rogers and Mr. Wilson had returned already. They had located the detonation device – remotely activated. SHIELD is investigating further, their technicians trying to determine what kind of device could have been virtually invisible to Friday and Karen, as well as Redwing. The warehouse had also been wiped clean before the explosion went off.

Peter lowers his eyes, his fingers stilling midtext. It was for nothing.

The two Avengers in question come to the door shortly after, still fully clad in their respective gear, Colonel Rhodes takes over updating them with everything they know thus far – nothing at all. After a brief interchange amongst them, the collective of Captain Rogers, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Barton, Ms. Romanoff and, much later after Mr. Romanoff had limped out, Colonel Rhodes exit into the hallway one at a time. Peter watches on, his eyes briefly meeting Mrs. Stark’s for a split second. Her expression falters, just slightly, indicating that they hadn’t moved far enough for that conversation at all.

“There was another charge,” Mr. Wilson’s voice carries out from the hallway. “If it had gone off when the other did, the warehouse would have collapsed on us.”

“How is it possible that you didn’t see it?” Colonel Rhodes asks.

“We don’t know yet,” Mr. Wilson says. “Whoever these guys are, it’s obvious they knew how to counteract our tech. We were blind to it downright. We walked in blind. The only reason we found a second charge was because we were looking for it.”

“But there are redundancies,” Colonel Rhodes insists. “How could they know how to bypass all of them?”

“This was premeditated,” Captain Rogers answers with a heaviness to his statement. “And I’m beginning to think that all of the last two months of tracking them was, too.”

“A set-up,” Ms. Romanoff concludes.

“I think it’s about time that we–” 

Whatever Mr. Barton’s thoughts on the situation were get drowned in the fuss as, following the ding of the elevator and the whoosh of the sliding doors, another, smaller, rushed voice comes to join theirs in the hallway. “Jesus! You scared me,” Aunt May’s voice carries out with a startle. “I was… huh, the… hum, is Peter here?”

“Down the hall, left,” Colonel Rhodes supplies.

“Thank you,” Aunt May says to the sound of rushed feet and a thrown back: “So sorry, excuse me.”

Peter doesn’t have enough time to compose himself before Aunt May shows up at the door herself, a quizzical look on her brow as she glances inside to check if this is the correct room before entering with a spring in her gait. Peter can’t help shrinking into himself as that look shifts completely into one of worry. 

“Oh, honey, are you okay?”

Peter can only faintly nod against her shoulder when Aunt May wraps her arms around him, the knot in the back of his throat returning bigger and harder to swallow when he finds himself engulfed in them. He blinks, tears welling up in his eyes like a dam had just been broken, and sniffles into her shoulder.

Aunt May pulls back, just slightly, and sits crossways on the seat next to him. He can’t look her in the eyes, he can’t so much as bring himself to speak. But instead of making him say anything, Aunt May contents herself with keeping one arm around him and checking him, her free hand on his face. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not hurt?” Peter can only shake his head at that and she pulls him in for another hug. “Okay, honey, okay.”

Peter can’t bring himself to say anything afterwards, either, even after Aunt May addresses Mrs. Stark and they converse briefly. 

He can hear them discussing it – how long it’s been, how long it can take… Peter doesn’t want to go into that, he doesn’t want to listen to anything else. He doesn’t want to think about the implications of the explosion having been premeditated, about the fact that there’s someone out there holding a hard enough grudge on the Avengers that they would set them up like that, and that that someone is knowledgeable enough about all of their technology that they could fool them so easily.

He doesn’t want to think that there had been an attempt on all of their lives and, while most of them are in various degrees of fine, or at least alive, Mr. Stark might not bounce back from it.

Colonel Rhodes and Ms. Romanoff walk back into the room and return to their previous seats. The only noise comes from Aunt May and Mrs. Stark’s scattered conversation, but even they quieten after a while.

Then, at long last, Peter perks up at the sound of footsteps coming from the end of the hallway. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Aunt May following his gaze with a quizzical look, and even Mrs. Stark pauses what she had been typing and puts her phone aside, her eyes expectant and anxious. His heart picks up in his chest, and he feels it slipping away and skidding through the pristine floor of the waiting room when Dr. Cho appears in the doorway.

Both Mrs. Stark and Colonel Rhodes stand as she comes in to address them. Aunt May moves to clench his hand with hers over his knee. 

Peter isn’t sure that he catches the exact words with his pulse resounding at his ears, but the wave of collective relief that washes over the collective of people in the waiting room is palpable. He’s okay. Mr. Stark is going to be okay. A breath gets past the permanent lump in the back of his throat.

“We want to keep a close eye on him for the next few hours,” Dr. Cho continues. “I was unable to access the history of Tony’s vitals for the duration of the RT node abnormal functioning, but it was evident that his heart was subjected to great stress. We don’t think there was a period of cardiac arrest because of the protocol that was put in place. I’m not an electrical engineer, but it is my general understanding, from when I was first briefed about it, that the electromagnet and pacemaker were privileged above all else.”

Peter knows as much. He had gotten it from the quick crash course Mr. Stark had given him on the Iron Man armor. They hadn’t gone into the specifics of the hibernation protocol, but it had been something that lingered in the air. It wasn’t something the Spider-man suit mirrored, but Mr. Stark had told him there was an adjacent equivalent to the FUBAR protocol that would send him a signal with Peter’s location in the event of critical vitals.

“However, there were pieces of shrapnel dislodged from where the magnet was keeping them and caught in the blood flow. We managed to locate and extract them on their way to the lungs and liver.”

“And… his heart,” Mrs. Stark manages to say, her face deeply contorted with worry, “he’s… He’s okay. You said… he was going to be okay.”

Dr. Cho takes a second to answer. 

It’s long enough for Peter’s head to snap back at her, the nervous energy she had managed to tone down by saying everything they had managed to fix returning tenfold all at once. Aunt May clenches her fingers around his hand tighter.

“He is,” Dr. Cho nods. “But it wasn’t without damage to the cardiovascular system that these fragments moved. The inner walls and the valves have been affected. More accurately, as you are aware, these were added lesions to the already existing ones.”

Peter doesn’t fully comprehend the look Dr. Cho gives both Mrs. Stark and Colonel Rhodes. 

“I have been in contact with Dr. Wu before, as you are aware as well, and I have had the opportunity to update him on these latest developments, and our professional opinion hasn’t changed. In fact, this only strengthens it,” she says. “The level of fibrotic tissue that already existed in the cardiac muscle and pericardium was enough to designate him a suitable candidate for the procedure.”

Mrs. Stark crosses her arms in front of her chest, a sigh that resembles a resigned sob pushed out of her lips. “He’s so stubborn, I…” she shakes her head fractionally and blinks.

“This isn’t the first time this subject comes to light,” Colonel Rhodes steps in, one hand on her arm. “It’s been… hit and miss for the last ten years.”

“Oh, I am aware,” Dr. Cho answers. “I’ve been contacted in the first place because of this, specifically. I know exactly what cooperation means in Tony’s lexicon.”

There’s a collective look of exasperation among the three, one that extends outwards to Ms. Romanoff’s obvious eyeroll. Peter only stares in confusion. He doesn’t know anything about any procedure; Mr. Stark had never mentioned anything to him when they talked about the RT – not that he has to divulge his medical history to anyone. Even when he had, just briefly, when he found out about Peter’s occasional sensory overload. Mr. Stark had migraines. Peter had felt much less embarrassed about his woke up weird days. Not that it was the same thing.

“We’ll talk to him,” Colonel Rhodes says with a firm nod. “That is… can we?”

“Yes,” Dr. Cho nods. “You can see him. He should wake up within the next thirty minutes. We are, however, keeping him heavily medicated. It’s natural that he isn’t fully lucid and his usual stubborn self for a little while longer.”

 

---

 

The next few days go by sluggishly.

Peter came over to the Compound every afternoon after school, driven by Happy. 

The first time he arrived, Mr. Stark had been asleep for the last three hours, according to Mrs. Stark and backed by Friday. Peter had only seen his mentor awake, just briefly and barely there, once after the intervention, and he had been sent to school with the thought that, maybe, once he returned the next day, he would find him awake. Peter wanted to see him, truly see him, and talk to him, and hear it from him that he would be alright. Peter claimed the armchair adjacent to Mrs. Stark’s and nestled, his notebook open over folded legs as he finished the homework for the day. 

The second day, the first thing he noticed through the opened door was that a table had been ushered next to the armchair he had taken the day before. The second thing he noticed were the voices, and just as he crossed the threshold, he found Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark looking back at him. Captain Rogers excused himself shortly after, an expression Peter couldn’t read on his face, and left them with each other, Peter standing there, uncertain with what to do, or even say. For someone that had wanted the chance to talk with his mentor just once after everything that’s happened, all words had scattered from his brain the moment he saw him awake, truly awake, his eyes fixed on him giving away more emotion than Peter could comprehend. 

The spell broke with a single gesture from Mr. Stark’s hand, beckoning him closer, and Peter had dropped his backpack at the doorway and hastened to wrap his arms around his torso and nestle to his chest. Thinking better of it, the RT a hard reminder of the moment he had seen the hole in his mentor’s chest a few days ago, and of everything Dr. Cho had said – all the wounds that had been inflicted to his heart, – he tried to pull back. But Mr. Stark had kept him there, one hand wrapped around his own wrist behind him. 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically low, and Peter, tears welling in his eyes, only held him tighter.

The next few days, the process repeats. Peter comes over, he manages to catch Mr. Stark awake, and faster than anyone wants it, he has a tablet with him (“Pepper won’t allow me to install holograms in here; which, honestly, it’s just boring.”) to catch up on whatever it is he has to catch up on. Peter takes the same spot from before to do his homework. Hadn’t it been for the setting, the feeling is much too familiar, from when they had done much of the same at Mr. Stark’s lab, each of them busy with their own projects, or Peter with his homework on occasion.

And like it had been before, Mr. Stark addresses Peter’s furrowed brow, which he does when he finds himself stuck (or because he can), and he brings it to him at Mr. Stark’s own request (which makes him set the tablet aside).

(When questioned if he truly was that stuck with a cubic equation, Peter would fake utmost innocence and say that, “Yes, those things are hard!” And Mr. Stark had the seemingly intrinsic ability to make anything complicated look easy, which was true regardless of Peter’s previous, alleged, lack of confusion for the problem.)

Then, on Friday, when Peter showed up with a clank, clank, clank coming from his backpack and, at Mr. Stark’s quizzical expression (“What are you trafficking? Jenga blocks?”), he had opened it to reveal an old, worn-out chess set. Uncle Ben had tried to teach him years ago; Peter had been on the young side and he had been more interested with playing with the pieces more than the actual game with far too many rules for him to remember. He’s pretty sure one of the bishops had teeth marks – maybe I should have bought a new one… – and there were at least five pawns that have been replaced with lego stormtroopers, for the white ones, and Death Eaters, for the blacks. I definitely should have just bought one. Regardless of that, they sat at the table to play.

“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Stark complains once he makes his move. “At this distance, my guy should be able to catch your guy with some kind of… lasso spell. Or at the very least, teleportation.”

“They’re not cowboys, Mr. Stark,” Peter says with a roll of his eyes. “And besides, if my guys can’t snipe at your guys from across the board, your guys can’t do magic. That’s the rules.”

“Mhm-hum,” Mr. Stark does. “I’ll acknowledge that when it’s written down.”

Peter snorts out a laugh. “No, you won’t.”

“No, I won’t,” Mr. Stark aquiesces. “What were you expecting? You show up here with a relevant change to the board, and you’re telling me we can’t use it to our advantage? That’s ridiculous. Utter horse dung,” he rants. “Just imagine all the alterations we could implement.”

Peter snickers, always caught off guard with Mr. Stark’s alternatives to swearing. He never knew if that’s something he had picked on after him, but the fluidity with which he employs them suggests otherwise. It’s one of those things that Peter had come to know about his mentor overtime, and it makes him feel somewhat special to know them. 

“Distracting your opponent is also frowned upon in the chess community,” Peter answers.

Mr. Stark narrows his eyes as he looks at him unblinking. “Since when are you in the,” he raises one hand to make quotations, “‘chess community’?”

“Since… thirty minutes ago… when we started playing,” Peter responds, causing Mr. Stark to chuckle. “And I’m frowning upon it, so… it is.”

“Not with that baby face of yours, you can’t,” Mrs. Stark says. “Grow a beard, and then I’ll personally teach you how to frown.” 

Peter makes his move with a roll of his eyes. 

As the game progresses, the banter between them doesn’t cease. A few rounds later, they have created the concept of a chess board and rules that look like something taken out of Dungeons & Dragons, a total war between wizards and space troopers. 

Board games are a bit off brand, but Peter wouldn’t put it past Mr. Stark to create a digital version of it just because it’s Tuesday someday. Peter knows of the existence of a floppy disk – yes, I know what that is – in a mysterious box, that he hadn’t managed to find the location of yet, with a roguelike type of video game with knights and amorphous creatures of pixelated goo that Mr. Stark had experimented with when he’d been in college. Allegedly, though the allegation came from Colonel Rhodes, and Peter is more than certain that Colonel Rhodes doesn’t deal in false truths.

“May I ask you a question?” Peter asks as his teeth-marked bishop takes one of Mr. Stark’s Death Eater pawns. 

Mr. Stark glances at him with a minimal furrow of his brow from the board. “Who’s distracting who now?” he says lightly, but something in him must have detected the tension the question alone had left on Peter – his bouncing knee certainly hadn’t helped to keep it concealed – stop! “Shoot,” Mr. Stark answers with a nod of his head.

“Have you ever considered it?” Peter’s eyes meet his fleetingly, suddenly uncertain of where to look. “Removing it, I mean. The arc reactor.”

The answer doesn’t come without pondering. Peter almost withdraws it, thinking he had crossed a line, the line, in the few seconds that it takes Mr. Stark to answer. The words are on the tip of his tongue, as well as an apology, when the admission comes. “I have.”

“Why…” Peter blinks. 

He hadn’t planned on asking this at all, he hadn’t wanted to interfere with anything after hearing the spiel from Dr. Cho. It isn’t about me. But, ever since then, in the jumbled of thoughts he had been circling around since the explosion, and the clear vision of the hole in Mr. Stark’s chest singed to the back of his mind, he hadn’t exactly not thought about it anymore.

Still, there isn’t a coherent question in his mind about it. Why hadn’t he? Ever since he had met his mentor, there was barely a thing that he left unanswered, an issue he left unmended. It wasn’t that it was out of his reach. Perhaps, ten years ago it had been, but even so… If there’s a word that doesn’t vibe with Mr. Stark, and Peter is inclined to believe it never had, is impossible.

Why does he keep it?

“Why haven’t you?” Peter questions at last, his eyes searching Mr. Stark’s face as if he could find anything there that he wouldn’t want him to.

Mr. Stark’s lips stretch into a thin line, but his eyes betray him. “All you have to know about it is that…” he pauses, “it’s part of me.”

Peter opens his mouth to argue. Had Mr. Stark been conscious, had he seen or in any way remembered what had happened… Peter can’t understand how, after all the work Mr. Stark had done with Dr. Cho to figure out a solution, he’s still backtracking. Mr. Stark could have died. If he had no need for the reactor to keep him alive, the worst a failure in energy production could do was trap him in the armor. And that’s to say that all they would have to do was open it, not worry whether or not he would die in the process of saving him.

Mr. Stark sighs. There’s something about it, something deeper than an innocent question from Peter can cover. Or any answer he will be inclined to give him. “Look. There’s a history. More than that, there are… complications.”

“But… Dr. Cho, she said…”

“I know what she thinks; I know what everyone thinks. Believe it or not, you weren’t the first one to bring up the question,” Mr. Stark responds.

Peter shuts his mouth.

“It’s not a question of if at this point,” Mr. Stark continues, recuperating the conversational cadence he had employed before; but even so, he trails off with a shake of his head, “it’s more along the lines of…”

“It’s you spider,” Peter mutters. “It’s what makes you special.”

“No,” Mr. Stark gives his head a firmer shake. “No, nothing like that. No, it’s…” he hesitates, teeth scuffing his bottom lip, “it’s what tells me that I’m not.”

Peter’s eyes widen. Of all the things he could have heard from his mentor, nothing like this has ever crossed his mind. Surely, fear of the procedure itself would have been the most natural thing in the world, and Peter had expected that on a surface level. But this… He can’t begin to grasp the full scope of implications from that sentence alone. 

“Full disclosure,” Mr. Stark continues when Peter doesn’t say anything, “I wasn’t always great at making the important decisions, making them matter. Or even seeing what’s right in front of me. I’m largely still not,” he says. “That’s something I can’t fall back into.”

Peter blinks. “If there’s something that you’ve taught me, Sir,” he says, “is that, the stuff we make isn’t the stuff that makes us. Paraphrased,” he admits. “It’s not one thing, or the lack of thereof, that will change…”

“It’s a reminder.”

“It’s a crutch,” Peter responds.

Mr. Stark sniffs, his lips pressing into a tight smile. Then, he points forward with his chin, and Peter is brought to look back at the board. “Checkmate,” he says, his smile fully reaching his eyes. “You know, kid, you’re sixteen, you’re not supposed to be smarter than me.”

Peter shrugs. “I had a great mentor.”

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 14 of Penny for your thoughts?