It’s another boring day in the life of Peter Parker. Just kidding, when is Peter’s life ever boring? The answer is never, and today is no different. Peter is sitting in class; Ned is to the right of him while MJ is behind him, as they listen to Mr. Herrington's lecture. All day Peter’s ‘Peter tingle’ has been going off, but he doesn’t know why. All seems normal, but there is something nagging at him.
He looks over to the clock to see that it is 9:44 am, but that’s not what snags his attention. The second hand on the clock is what makes his eyebrows furrow. He can always hear the tick-tick-ticking of the clock, as he can hear everything with his enhanced hearing. Honestly, it gets annoying sometimes. The difference is that today the ticking is a little louder than usual, and it’s off. When he thinks ‘off’, he means that the second hand moves and ticks, but a millisecond later there is a louder tick that does not correspond with the moving hand. ‘Is the clock broken?’ he thinks.
Ned sees the conflict and concern in his best friend's face and reaches out to nudge his arm, “Peter man, are you okay?” he whispers.
Peter shakes his head, it’s probably nothing, “Yeah, yeah, fine. Sorry.” Ned doesn’t look quite convinced, but they both turn back to the board anyhow.
He can’t stop thinking about the ticking all day. Especially when he changes classes and like the clock in Mr. Harrington’s class, the second hand on every other clock does not correlate with the louder ticking he hears. He also feels like he has heard the same ticking somewhere else, but he can’t put his finger on it. He barely pays attention to his classes as he tries to pinpoint where he has heard that ticking.
He goes through many plausible possibilities. The first being a clock, but he already ruled that out. The second being a metronome from the music room, but that Tick Tock is deeper than the one he hears now. Maybe someone clicking a computer mouse? No that didn’t make sense, this ticking/clicking was too consistent. He thought about someone nervously clicking their pen, but that had the same problem, not to mention no one would be clicking their pen for hours on end. Then it hit him, a timer, but not just any timer, he remembers hearing that exact Ticking in the same frequency and tone when he was fighting with the Avenger a few months ago.
It was a bomb!
He didn’t even raise his hand or say anything; he just shot up and ran out of the room. He heard the teacher call after him and students murmuring, but he paid no mind. This was life or death. Everyone was still in class, meaning the hallways were clear, so he lifted the lockers to get his suit and web shooters hidden beneath. After that he ran out the doors and went to the back of the school to put on his suit, leaving his civilian clothes in a pile, as he didn’t think to grab his backpack during his mad dash out. As soon as karen was activated, he called Mr. Stark. Usually he would chit chat with Karen for a little, but there was no time.
After the third ring, during which he was listening to the tick-tick-ticking sound and following it, Mr. Stark picked up. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school kid?”
“Mr. Stark their a bomb near the school!” he rushed out the words as he was still following the sound.
“What?! Don’t you dare go near it Peter I swear to god, I’ll be there in ten, five if I can.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Stark, I don’t know how much time is left, I have to find it before it blows.” Peter said as the ticking sound got louder. He was closing in on it.
“No, Peter stay away, that is an order!” He didn’t sound as mad as he did scared.
“I'm sorry Mr. Stark, just get here as fast as possible. Karen, end call.”
“Peter don't you dare hang up o-” The call disconnected.
“I can hear it, it’s so close. Karen, can you find it?” Peter asked as he looked around frantically.
“Scanning premises now.” Peter impatiently waited, switching his weight from foot to foot. “It should be about ten feet in front of you attached to the bottom of a bench.”
Peter sprinted to the bench directly in front of him, and he was in the school's courtyard. Like Karen said, there was a silver cylinder attached to the bottom of the bench—a pipe bomb. “Is it safe to move, Karen?”
“It should be safe to move, but I will have to do some research on how to disarm it.” Peter carefully pulled the bomb from the bench. When he turned it over, he almost choked—there was two minutes and twenty three seconds left.
He immediately started running away from the school with it in his hand. “How’s the research going Karen?” Peter says, a bit out of breath as he keeps running.
“I cannot find the schematics on this particular build,” Karen said, and if Peter wasn’t mistaken, he almost sensed concern in her robotic voice.
“Ok, new plan, where’s the tallest building within one minute run or swing of me?”
“Take a right at the next light and then go straight for two blocks, there is a highrise on Jackson Avenue right there,” she replies.
“Thanks Karen,” he says as he takes a right. He then runs the two blocks until he sees the tallest building on that street. He starts climbing as fast as he can and finally gets to the roof as the timer gets to one minute eleven seconds. He has a plan, but it’s not a great one.
“Karen I don’t have time for a whole goodbye speech, but if this goes badly tell Ned and MJ that they were the best friends I could ask for. Tell the team thank you for including me. And tell May I love her so much and I’m sorry for leaving her alone.”
“I will Peter.” She sounded almost sad.
“Thanks for being the best AI I could ask for. Now patch me through to Mr. Stark please,” Peter said, and a moment later Tony’s frantic voice came on the line.
“Peter! Please tell me you don’t have the bomb, I’ll be there in a little less then a minute!”
Peter looked down at the bomb, thirty five seconds remaining. He felt tears prick his eyes. “I’m sorry Mr. Stark, I don’t have that much time.”
“Peter, pl-” He was cut off.
“In case this goes wrong, thank you for being the best mentor I could have asked for.”
“Kid, please,” he could hear the tears in Mr. Stark’s voice, which matched well with his own.
“I love you, I’m sorry,” Peter says as jumps high into the air off the building and tosses the bomb even higher. One second later it explodes.
“Peter!!!” Tony screams into the phone call as he comes up on the explosion only a few seconds after.
Peter is sent back by the force of the explosion and hits the side of the building he jumped from hard and starts to fall to the ground twenty five stories below. A few stories before he hits the concrete, he is grabbed by red and gold metal.
Tony flew them a bit away from the explosion to another rooftop. He lays the kid down, who is eerily still as he quickly exits the suit. “Pete?!” He comes crashing down next to the unconscious teen. “Peter wake up!” He says as he tapped the kid on his cheek. Peter does not stir. “FRIDAY scan for injuries.” he steps out of the way as the suit scans Peter.
“Second degree burns on his chest and severe concussion. Due to his healing capabilities, the burn should heal in a few hours, a day at most, but the concussion will take longer.” Tony takes a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Nothing too big, but he should get him to the Medbay in case. Tomy gets back into the suit. Once inside, he bends down to pick Peter up, one arm under the kid’s knees and one behind his back. “You’ll be ok, just a quick trip.” he says to the unconscious boy right before he takes off.
Once back to the tower, Peter is taken to the Medbay and set up in a bed after they clean and dress the burn on his chest. Now Tony is sitting in the chair next to Peter’s bed waiting for him to wake up. May is on her way.
______
Of course, Peter chooses when May goes to get coffee to wake up. He groans, pain in his head is the first thing he notices.
“Undroos, you with me?”
Peter scrunches up his face in pain and then opens his bleary eyes. He looks around and immediately knows he is in the Medbay. ‘What did I do this time?’ he thinks. But then a moment later everything comes rushing back. The ticking, the bomb, the exposion, and then nothing. Tony can see the confusion and worry in the kid’s eyes, “Hey, hey you're ok.”
Peter looks up at his mentor, “The bomb! Was anyone hurt!!”
“You mean besides yourself?” Tony already knew that's what Peter meant, “No. No one was hurt.” He says softly.
At those words, Peter slumped back on the pillow behind him. “Good,” he said in a sigh of relief. “How am I?” he was still waking up and he didn’t know exactly where he was hurt. He felt a little pain around his chest, but his head was what was bothering him the most.
“You’ll be okay, just need rest. You have a burn on your chest that should be gone by the end of the day, and a pretty severe concussion.”
“Oh, that’s why my head is killing me.”
Tony chuckled, “Yeah, that would be why.” He used one of his hands to gently card through Peter’s curls, avoiding the back since there was a small wound there from where the building made contact with it. Peter melted into the touch and relaxed even more. “You scared the crap out of me, kiddo.”
“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t let anyone get hurt.” he whispered. He was getting tired.
“I know, but next time promise me to count yourself in the category of ‘anyone’, ok? Although, there should be no next time.” Tony said corrects at the end.
Peter yawned, “I’ll do my best. Did you catch who put it there?” Peter asked as his eyes began to fall shut.
“We have some leads, but you don’t need to worry about that. You just need to focus on healing and resting.” Peter gave a sleepy nod, “Go back to sleep Pete, I’ll be here when you wake up.” Peter wasn't going to argue, he was exhausted. Right before he fell back into the pleasant abyss of unconsciousness, he felt Tony place a kiss onto his forehead and heard him whisper, “Love you kid.” Peter fell asleep after that with a soft smile on his lips.