Panic Attack
Peter walked into work the next day, a cheery air about him as he hopped into the elevator. After having been dug out of the collapsed building the other day by Shield, he had treated himself, Bucky and Sam to some ice-cream. After of course getting Sam to a hospital - he had swung to an ice-cream shop and bought free then swung back (an incredibly difficult thing to do).
He hopped into the elevator, his chipper attitude radiating off of him: 'Hi FRI!' he called to the ceiling, immediately getting a response from her:
'Good morning Mister Parker. You seem to have slightly fractured ribs and a half-healed bulet wound to the abdomen, shall I inform Mr Stark?'
'No FRI,' Peter quickly said, deciding to lie to the AI to avoid her contacting Mr Stark: 'I already went to the hospital for that and the doctor said I would be fine to work if I took it easy.'
'Yes, I have access to that hospital record,' FRIDAY confirmed - Peter had hacked the hospital May used to work at just in case: 'Shall I still inform Mr Stark.'
'Oh, no need, FRI. He has so much going on with the shooting yesterday anyway.' Peter reasoned with her, really not wanting her to inform Mr Stark.
'May I inquire as to how you obtained the injury?' FRIDAY asked, forcing Peter to think fast on his feet:
'Uh yeah, I don't mind: remember the Sniper incident the other day with Spider-Man, The Falcon and Winter Soldier? So yeah: I was close to that and got a piece of rubble on me. Also one of the sniper's bullets richoted off of a wall and hit me: not really that deeply though.' he lied through his teeth, marvelling at his own ability to lie.
'I see,' FRIDAY spoke up, 'Too bad both you and Mr Stark got hurt by that incident.' she noted, making Peter look up: what did she just say?
'W-wha-what do you mean FRI?' he inquired, his voice stuttering and quavering a little.
'You seem to be in distress, shall I inform Mr Stark?' FRIDAY asked, making Peter sigh:
'No, just worried about Mr Stark: what happened?'
'He got shot in the leg mister Parker, he requests you to come to the Medbay, where he is resting.'
'Will do, FRI, tell him not to rot away in boredom before I arrive.' Peter quipped, internally blaming himself: he thought Sam and he had been the only two who had been injured. Apparently Mr Stark had gotten hurt as well. Could he have avoided that? He shook his head: no, he did his best, and that was all he could do.
Peter quickly stepped out of the elevator at the common room, determined to walk the rest of the way to the medbay to collect his thoughts, when he saw Natasha and Clint curled up on the sofa, casually eating asparagus from the bottle. Yeah: that fit their characters somehow, Peter just didn't know in what way, it just seemed so them.
He smiled and sauntered over to them, going to say hi quickly before going over to Tony, he informed FRIDAY to tell Tony he would be a few minutes because he was saying hi to them.
'Hiya guys!' he called out, waving to them, stopping a meter away from the couch, eliciting a smile from both of them and a cheery hello.
'Care for an asparagus?' Natasha asked, her head resting on Clint's chest. Peter made a face:
'No thanks, I'm not a psycho like y'all.' he quipped, making Clint shrug:
'More for us psycho's I guess then.' he answered drammatically, popping one into his mouth and obnoxiously chewing loudly, causing Nat to make a face at him.
Peter smiled, then turned serious, crossing his arms drammatically, wanting to keep a chill visage: 'So, when were people going to inform me my cranky boss was bedridden with a GSW?'
'Never.' Nat answered casually with a grin: 'He'll be fine: he's a big softie.' Peter giggled as FRIDAY talked from the roof:
'Master Stark told me to tell you that you are a traitor and should stop talking with those two right away.'
Nat and Clint both raised their eyebrows, Nat looked up at the ceiling: 'You can tell Tony that if he wants him to, he should come down here and fight me.' Clint snickered as FRIDAY informed them the message had been sent. Clint added to it:
'Tell him if that offended him, he should go for a walk: always calms someone down.'
Peter grinned at their savagery, then turned the ceiling: 'FRI, ask him if he needs me to bring anything. I'm not bringing any machinery though: I'm not that strong and I don't want to be murdered by Pepper or Bruce.'
'He says he would like you to finally get your - I'm sorry, I have been programmed to use a beep whenever someone swears, I suggest you cover your ears- *beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* over here already, then he'll talk.'
Peter, Nat and Clint all covered their ears at the obnoxiously high pitched beep. When Peter's ears finally started ringing, he turned to Clint: 'Can I borrow your ipad real quick?'
'Sure.' Clint handed him his iPad.
'Okay, just a sec, gotta get through the firewalls,' Peter mumbled, making Nat sit up in interest and invite him to sit on the couch to see what he was doing, which he did. 'Okay, wow, only 5 firewalls?' he questioned, 'And flimsy ones at that.... now where is that code....mhhh... found it.... give it a bit. Okay, one of you send a message to me and swear in it.'
Nat smirked and looked up at the ceiling, 'FRI, tell Peter he is *long list of curse words that I have redacted bcs Steve might be reading this :)*'
FRIDAY spoke up: 'Mister Parker, Nat would like you to know that she thinks you're a *again redacted by me, the author, but FRIDAY spoke the words.'
Peter smiled: 'Problem solved. I also learned like 20 new curse words, thanks Nat.'
'Nat!' Steve's voice boomed from down the hallway, 'Why would you teach him that?!!!'
'Run.' Peter advised her, high tailing it towards the doorway, hearing Clint and Natasha laughing behind him as they exited from another door.
---Five minutes later---
Peter entered the Medbay slightly out of breath, wincing as his ribs started throbbing, but ignored the pain as soon as he saw Tony:
'Mr Stark! I am so sorry, I would have been here earlier to help you, but no one told me!' he cried out, rushing to the bed on which a bored Tony was lying, who just chuckled:
'It's fine kid, and for the millionth time: it's Tony to you.'
'Okay Mr Tony.' Peter joked, making the man ruffle his soft brown curls.
'Why were you so out of breath Pete?' Tony inquired, intrigued at this, wondering what kind of trouble Peter had gotten himself into this time.
'Oh nothing much: I removed the curse words filter because the beeping noise was obnoxious, then made Nat test it out by telling FRIDAY to send me a message filled with curse words, which she did. It worked by the way: you can curse again now and there won't be the annoying noise anymore. Anyway: I learned like 20 new words and some Russian curses which made Steve angry at Nat and Clint so we ran out of there as quickly as we could.'
'Kid! I put that curse word feature on there for Morgan and you! Put it back on!'
'But the beeping noise hurts my ears Mr Stark!' Peter whined, immediately wishing he hadn't, as he saw Tony's concerned look:
'Oh Pete, I'm sorry. You okay?'
'Oh yeah, I'm fine Mr Stark.' Peter quickly said, 'Just don't like the noise.'
Suddenly, FRIDAY's voice spoke from the ceiling: 'He also informed me that his three cracked ribs are okay, and the GSW to the chest has been tended to by a doctor, so you needn't worry Master Stark.'
Tony's eyes widened, and he started breathing rapidly: 'W-what d-d-did you s-s-sh-say F-f-Fri?' he asked, then turning to Peter: 'W-wa-what happened?'
'Ok Mr Stark it was nothing,' Peter quickly rambled, trying to calm his boss down, 'You know the shooting incident, well a piece of the rubble hit me in the chest, thus the cracked ribs. And the GSW was from one of the Sniper's richoting bullets, so it was really fine you know. I'm fine. The doctor checked me out and all.' he ended, turning to Tony to see if he had succeeded in calming him down with this explenation, but only seemed to have worried him even more.
Tony was now sweating a lot and taking quick labored breaths: 'P-p-peter?' he asked stuttering out the boy's name. Peter quickly took his hand:
'Mr Stark! Are you alright?!' he cried out, but Tony was not. He had gone into a panic attack. Why was Peter like this? Why couldn't he just be a normal person who did not send his boss into a panic attack?! Why?! What should he do.
'Hey, Mr Stark: it's okay, I'm fine, you're fine.' he assured the man, rubbing circles onto his hand, while telling FRIDAY to get doctor Banner as fast as possible.
Tony however, did not calm down, breathing more and more rapidly. Peter was struck by an idea: 'Hey Tony!' he said, jostling the man's shoulders, finally gaining his attention by the use of his first name: 'It's okay, breathe like me okay? in, and out, in and out. Yeah! Yeah! Just like that! You're doing great.'
Slowly, Tony's breathing became normal again, and he seemed once again aware of his surroundings, only to find Peter crouched next to his bed on his knees, holding his hands in his own, smiling reassuringly: 'Yeah, that's it Tony, you're okay, I'm okay, everyone is okay.' he heard the kid reassure him. Tony smiled, reaching over to ruffle the kid's hair, then smiling cheeckily:
'You called me Tony. Twice.'
'Yeah, the first two and the last two times I'm ever doing that.' Peter answered with a laugh, just as Bruce entered, seeming to run here, behind him he could see Nat, Clint and Steve.
Bruce glanced over at Tony: 'Wait, you're calm again: it normally takes twenty minutes before you are. FRIDAY, how long was his panic attack.'
'2 minutes and 5 seconds, sir.' FRIDAY told him helpfully, making all the Avengers who had just entered the house, raise their eyebrows in confusion. Then Steve's eyes landed on Peter, still on his knees next to Tony's bed, still holding his hands:
'Son, did you get him out of the panic attack?' he inquired, making Peter laugh:
'Well, I figured since I was the one who caused it, I might as well get him out of it.' he joked.
'Wait, how did you know how?' Clint asked, immediately getting a glare from Nat, who just wanted to ask how Peter had sent Tony into a panic attack.
'I watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.' Peter informed them, his cheeks flushing slightly, but Nat nodded:
'Yeah, that's basically Tony, isn't it.'
'For real it is, including the paranoia and self-centeredness.' Clint noted, heading his head wisely, making Peter laugh and Tony frown.
'So how did you give this idiot a panic attack?' Nat finally inquired: 'I need to know how so if I ever feel the need for revenge...' she shrugged, 'Y'know, then I know what to do.'
'Oh it was nothing really.' Peter said, shoving the question off, Tony, however, had other plans:
'Nothing?!' he spluttered, then he turned to Bruce, 'this guy has 3 fractured ribs, and a GSW to the abdomen and came into work today!'
Bruce turned pale and swivveled over to Peter: 'Is this true?' he demanded to know, while Nat tried to not show her self-awareness at the kid hiding an injury, Clint glared down at his wife mouthing: this is how I feel whenever you do that and Steve just looked at him all googly eyed.
'Well, yeah,' Peter shrugged, as Bruce immediately rushed over to him. Peter, however, waved him off: 'Don't worry, the doctor already checked me out and I was good to go. I just got some rubble on me the other day during the sniper fiasco - I was closeby - and a bullet that richoted off of a wall hit me in the abdomen. No biggie.' he said, shrugging innocently, hoping they would drop it.
Nat took on a menacing form: 'If you don't let Bruce check you out right now, I will karate-flip you onto that unoccupied bed over there.' Peter groaned drammatically, sitting down on the unused bed in the medbay, grudginly letting Bruce check him out, who tutted in annoyance:
'Which hospital did you go to?' he inquired crossly.
'CNYA hospital downtown Queens.' Peter responded meekly, basically feeling the anger radiating off of Bruce. 'Uhh, you okay? You can step out if you want.'
'Nope, I'm fine. You however: are not. These stitches are messy and they shouldn't have said you were allowed to go into work! I'll have to re-do the stitches on the bullet wound, and then bed-rest. To which you should have been ordered for at least a week by them!'
'What were you thinking, going to CNYA hospital?!' Natasha demanded in a severely annoyed, angry and concerned tone, 'Everyone knows that hospital sucks. It's where criminals go!'
'It's also where poor people go, Miss Romanoff.' Peter bit back angrily: even though he hadn't gone there, he was pretty offended by her comment. Why would she insinuate that he was a criminal?!
Natasha rolled her eyes: 'No need for the attitude, Pete. I didn't mean to insinuate you were a criminal, just that you should go to less scetchy hospitals.' she said softly, 'Next time: ask me or anyone else for money so you can go to a better one.'
'Yes, ma'am.' Peter replied sullenly, avoiding the topic of the fact that it was simply easier to claim that he went to the CNYA hospital, since they were so sketcy that they would assume he was a criminal or something trying to avoid the police, and would confirm that he had been there, just to keep him out of the jail. Criminals and crooks were nice like that, which sometimes surprised Peter a lot - it also annoyed him greatly.
Thirty minutes, he had been all sewn up in a seperate room, and Bruce smiled at him, Natasha and Clint joining him in the seperate room. Natasha was the first to speak:
'You know, any good spy knows that if you want a hospital to confirm you were there, you say you went to CNYA and they will back you up no matter what.' Peter went to speak, but Bruce shushed him:
'CNYA is the perfect place for mutants to claim to have gone to, or actually go to as well: they never comment on say, the increased healing capabilities like yours.'
Peter gaped at them, opening his mouth up and down, finally stuttering out: 'Listen, I'm not a bad mutant okay? I just have super fast healing and a faster metabolism as a cause of that. I don't do anything bad: promise. In fact: I don't do much. I just mind my own business. Please don't tell anyone: I don't want to be locked up!'
Clint scoffed: 'Pete, I thought it was kinda obvious, since you literally work at a place with mutants, that we won't snitch. Does Tony know?'
'No.'
'You should tell him.'
'No: he'll only worry about my safety. He'll start worrying about Hydra, you know how they are so he'll become paranoid.' Peter quickly spoke, making Nat nod:
'Okay, but if I feel the need to tell him or Pepper, I won't hesitate to do so.'
'Yes, Nat.'
'Oh and Peter,' Clint said with a smile.
'Yeah?'
'Bucky and Sam are here to see you, we'll give you some time alone: they were adamant on it. They probably figured it out as well, and think they are the only ones and don't want to give away your secret.' Clint said with a laugh as Nat and Bruce tried to still their laughter.
Peter grinned: 'Of course they do.' he answered, though in his mind he was pannicking: they knew which injuries Spider-Man had had. He wa so doomed.