It was such a nice, peaceful weekend.
Tony had invited the kid to a physics conference in Europe, where peter had spent the weekend gasping in awe of being in the presence of the greatest minds of the 21st century , while tony had spent it showing off how brilliant his kid-mentee-intern was .
On there was back , in the plane – private, obviously , tony was snoozing while peter rambled on and on about how great the conference was and how he had had a debate with one of his idols for an hour straight .
“Then I was like – sir, your theory doesn’t explain how the thermonuclear – Mr. Stark , are you even listening ?”
“Dozed off , kid “ tony grunted .” geez , can’t you just enjoy the view of the beautiful snowy tundra below us ? let an old man rest.”
Peter was about to say something when the pilots panicking voice filled in their ears – “mayday ! mayday! I’ve lost control of the plane; I repeat – I’ve lost control –we are going dow-“
There was a sonic boom, and then everything went blank.
Tony wakes up to snow on his face. he wipes them out of his face , hazily trying to remember why on earth he was lying on cold icy ground with nothing but a jacket serving as warm clothing .
The conference. peter . the crash .peter!
That springs tony to his feet . the plane was just a bunch of wreckage around him , and peter was nowhere in sight . he checks his cellphone- dead . he hadn’t really expected it to be functioning though. After looking for a few agonizing minutes, he found his kid still fastened in his seat , hanging awkwardly in an 45 degree angle. tony rushed forward , put a finger on his carotid and thanked thor and everyone on asgard when he detected a pulse.
“Peter ?” he called. “kid? Wake up.”
Peter groaned. he blinked opened his eyes .
“Mr. strk?”
Tony sighted with relief. “That’s it, buddy . That’s it . Keep those eyes open for me-“
“Mr. strk—cold-spider-cant thermoregulate-I cant-im-“ peter managed ,all the while shivering . he tried to tell tony that he couldn’t thermoregulate because of freaky spider bite and that he would literally freeze to death but what came out was a series of jumbled words. Tony understood him just fine .
“Shush kid . its okay . its okay . I’m here.” he opened his jacket and pulled it around peter . that caused the chill to finally hit him , but at least peter stopped shivering a bit .
He gently freed the kid from the seatbelt and laid him down . Then tony went up to salvage whatever he could. He found a first aid box , which provided him with two thick shock blankets . he also found some bandages for their cuts and bruises – fortunately , neither of them weren’t hurt too bad – the plane was pretty low on the sky when it crashed . he also found a couple water bottles but they were already mostly frozen .
Tony went back to peter – he was looking around sluggishly, not even trying to even stand up , and that worried tony to no ends . if tony knew anything about his kid , it was that peter always tried to help others , no matter how badly hurt he was . He propped him up and wrapped both the blankets around him . That made peter a bit more coherent . his eyes gained some of the clarity it had lost.
“Mr. Stark ?” he tried. “where are we ?”
“I don’t know , kiddo . my best bet is somewhere in the Appalachians , maybe ?”
“ ‘m scared , mr . stark.” Those three words alone made Tony’s gut churn with fear . peter never admitted he was scared .
“its gonna be okay , underoos. The plane should’ve sent emergency signals when it crashed – the team will be here in no time . consider this as a impromptu survival course , yeah ? handy skill for an avenger .”
“the –the pilot , Mr. stark?”
“I’m sorry , Pete.”
Some time passed in silence . peter was quite again , his head lolling on his chest . he seemed to shiver much less now that he was covered with layers of warmth . tony , on the other hand , shivered s more . sacrificing his jacket for peter meant that now he only had his flannel tee shirt to protect him from the subzero temperatures they were in .
Tony looked around . they were in a pretty good area , all things considered . the broken wing provided a cover for them , they were sheltered from three sides with the walls of the plain , but the open fourth side did nothing to stop the cold and ice .
Tony must have dozed off or passed out , and he came to when peter started speaking again .
“mr.stark , did you know my parents died in a plane crash?”
Shit! How could’ve tony forgotten – he knew that peter has had problems with air travel because of that ! here he was , sleeping , while the kid was probably going through a lot of trauma alone .
“its okay be okay , Pete – I promise . they’ll be here anytime now . just hold on for a little longer ,okay ?”
“aunt may said that we parkers have a bad luck with planes . that’s why we never went anywhere in a plane – not that we had the money either.” He added , in a quitter voice ,” Im missing her , Mr. Stark.”
That’s broke Tony’s heart . Jesus , he never thought he would get so involved with a kid , but here , he was comforting a teenager year old that everything was going to be fine , when they both knew it probably wasn’t going to be that way . a couple more hours , and they would start getting frostbite.
Nevertheless, he tried to cheer peter up .”well at least now we can say people that we went through the same thing as cap , and we nearly became Petesickle and tonysickle too . right, kid?”
There wasn’t any reply .
“kid?”
“peter?”
Peter had passed out again, or maybe fallen asleep – so tony was left alone with his damn intrusive thoughts. Again.
Everything kind of fuzzed up after that . peter was barely coherent anymore. Everything disappeared in a veil of haze around tony . the cold was getting to his bones . he shivered uncontrollably . he wasn’t sure about his surroundings anymore , only that peter needed him , that he couldn’t let his kid die – what was even going on ? he blacked out again .
Tony woke when he started feeling hot. it was good , right ? he wasn’t feeling chilly anymore , on the contrary it was like he was in a sauna ,even thought he could still fill snow on his face. Good. Good. He couldn’t feel his limbs , but at the same time they felt like burning . the warmth became intense – so intense that he was sure he was sitting in an furnace . tony should call pepper , tell her to switch off the heater – or Jarvis could do that too – but when tony called for him , there was no reply . so he fumbled to open his shirt , and when he finally managed to , it gave him some relief . he didn’t knew how much time passed after that . vaguely , he heard shouting , yelling , calling . Whoever it was , he identified the word ‘peter’ . wasn’t that his kid ? what happened to peter? Tony clumsily shoved his hand around , and finally found a small , cold body . he held on to it . the voices were close now , near him , but the ringing in his ears blocked out whatever they were saying . then they started pulling away peter . no! tony wouldn’t let that happen –no way ! he held on tighter, trying to fight the hands that prodded him , but they didn’t leave . they couldn’t take peter- tony wouldn’t allow them to . then all of a sudden he felt really , really cold , and he tilted back in the hands that were holding him .
The call came when they were having lunch . Jarvis announced that tony and peters plane had crashed , and they were requested to arrange a rescue mission .time moved faster after that . it took them just over an hour to land at the coordinates that Jarvis provided. It was then Steve saw how bad it was - the plane looked like a kid had scattered the pieces of a Lego set with a hammer . he wondered if the plane he had crashed in had looked like this . bruce as well as two medic rolled out two gurneys with first aid kits perched on top of them while he assisted rhodey while the latter scanned for heat signatures .
“found two,” he informed them. “the pilots dead.”
they hurried past the ruined cockpit and the frozen fuselage , and then finally found them . peter was swaddled in blankets , passed out cold , and tony- tony was wearing nothing but his black vest and pants . he had snow all over his face , but even barely coherent , he was holding on to peter for dear life .
Bruce started yelling orders. “Prep the gurneys , warm up as much saline as you can , and bring out heating pads and electric blankets NOW.”
He ran to their side. peter was their first priority- they knew he couldn’t thermoregulate. he checked peter’s pulse – thready but strong . he jabbed the temperature checker into his neck , and it showed 830 F- moderate hypothermia . he started to separate him from tony in order to check the older man , but tony started thrashing deliriously with his last bit of strength .
Rhodey grabbed tony then, holding him from the back in a half embrace, half lock . “you have to let go , tones – peters gonna be okay ! we need to check both of you – its over now . you can let go , tony.”
Tony kept on fighting, even though his grip faltered on peter as his energy faded . Bruce and Steve frantically tried to separate them , and Bruce was about to call for a sedative when tony went limp. His head lolled back onto Rhodes’s chest as he crumpled .
“Bruce!”
Bruce was already in action , rushing to Tony’s side , and jabbing the temp-checker onto his neck . “79.5,” the machine showed as it beeped in alarm .
“he’s going into hypothermic shock,” Bruce cursed . “that’s why he opened his shirt . its called paradoxical undressing . severe hypothermia causes intense feeling of warmth in extremities . he’s near fatal. Dammit! I should’ve checked him faster-stupid! He gave both blankets to peter and opened his shirt-what if he got frostbite-“
“doc,” steve cut out bruce’s blabber, “ you are rambling. right now he needs you . they both do.”
Bruce pulled himself together . after Steve had gently picked up tony and placed him on the gurney , he swabbed down a vein and hooked him up to heated saline . both peter and tony were given warm oxygen , along with as many heating pads and blankets they could find .
Tony’s heartbeat bottomed out to the 30-40 beats per minute range. Despite all the heating blankets and saline , his temperature didn’t rise fast enough for bruce to declare him stable , so while the medics wheeled away peter , the three avengers huddled around their stupid self sacrificial friend and waited .
Once the crisis was over, and the quintet was well on its way , it was only then rhodey remembered something very , very important .
“ oh shit ! I forgot to call pepper – she’s gonna kill me.”
Tony opened his eyes to see peter dozing on a chair beside his bed .
“kid?” he grunted .
“Mr. stark ! you are awake ! oh – I woke up hours ago and aunt may told me that you were still sleeping – I was so worried – Mr. Rhodes told me that you saved my life with those blankets-thank you-thank you Mr. stark –“
“kid,” tony cut out peter’s excited rambling , “its okay . calm down . you are ranting.”
Peter blushed .” right, Mr. stark . Ms. Potts was here – she went out to the cafeteria to have coffee with may – should I call her?”
“nah, kid . let her have her coffee . when she comes back , im telling her to free my schedule and the moment we are getting out of here ,we are going on vacation- somewhere warm and sunny – maybe the beach ?”