Won’t you stay a while?
Clint had his head bowed as he knelt for Tony. At least he knew that Tony had gotten to see his kid before he, well before. He couldn’t watch when Tony’s kid had landed in front of him and told him that they had won yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the boy and his mentor. The kid was young. And the way he pleaded made him seem so much younger. And when the light went out in his reactor Clint knew what had happened and knelt for the man who brought his family back and made sure that they would stay. The others followed suit and kneeled with him.
After a silent moment He heard a voice call out again.
“Mr. Stark!” The kid cried out. “Tony.”
He had a feeling that the kid hardly ever called his mentor by his first name. He looked up to see the boy stumble back towards Tony’s fallen form. He watched him press his ear to his mouth. All he could think about was his own son, Cooper, or even Nathaniel. Instinctively he started toward the kid. Listened to him shout at Pepper and stare with pleading eyes. And Clint knew the kid would have a hard time processing it because he was still just a kid even though watching him fight in that battle had Clint forgetting that fact at times because he seemed to be doing so well. He also knew that according to Tony, the kid was no stranger to the concept of death. But that didn’t make each one easier to accept.
The kid started stumbling over his words and Clint saw the pitying and grieving looks on Rhodey and Pepper’s face and he knew that they weren’t in any shape to help the kid cope with this so he instinctively knelt next to the kid and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey there, kiddo,” he said as he nodded at Pepper and Rhodey that he would take care of him. “Take your time. It’s ok.”
He knew Peter would need to sort through his thoughts that the kid was in shock. Though it might be painful for him to hear the boy struggle through it he knew it was necessary.
“He needs help,” Peter finally choked out. He was holding back tears but it clearly wasn’t working. “Please, sir, we have to help him.”
Peter didn’t need someone to tell him that he was wrong, Clint knew. He needed someone to listen, even if breaking the news eventually would be hard.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do, I’m afraid,” Clint said carefully and regretfully.
“No!” Peter shouted and pulled away from him like he had pulled away from the others. “You don’t understand!”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Clint nodded, agreeing and holding his hands up.
“He’s breathing!” Peter said. “Please, sir, he’s breathing. He needs help. I can hear him.”
The kid was awfully polite even when he was upset and that amazed Clint. He heard someone gasp out a sob behind them but he ignored them. The others had started crowding them but Clint had held his hand up behind his back discreetly to get them to stop coming closer and overwhelming him.
He leaned over and pressed his ears to Tony’s mouth. He didn’t hear anything or feel a breath but then again he didn’t have the best hearing. So he tried to feel for a pulse on his neck.
“I’m sorry, Peter, right?” Clint said. “I don’t hear anything or feel anything.”
“You wouldn’t,” Peter nodded in agreement. But he spoke quickly like he was worried he’d be stopped again. “Please. I can hear better than others. My hearing- one of my powers- it’s enhanced.”
The kid looked frantic and desperate like he was worried that no one would believe him. Clint wasn’t sure if he did but he knew that one of the boy's powers was enhanced hearing, Tony had told him that once.
“Please,” the boy pleaded with a tear stained face staring desperately at Clint. “I know it’s faint. But I can hear it please. 20 bpm. Right now. Unsteady.”
“I-“ Clint started but he really didn’t know what to say.
Peter suddenly and desperately turned towards Tony Stark’s fallen form and placed two hands where the arc reactor used to be before Pepper took it out. He pulled and broke apart the Ironman suit much to Clint and everyone else’s shock. Peter put his ear to the man’s chest.
“It’s there!” Peter said again. “Please we have to do something.”
Without waiting for a response his mask covered his face.
“Karen, connect to Friday in Ironman’s suit.” Peter cried out.
“Systems down, I can connect you to Friday in Pepper Potts suit,” Karen replied in only Peter’s ear.
Clint, who couldn’t hear the A.I. or knew of her existence asked, “Who’s Karen?”
But Peter didn’t respond, instead his suit retracted and revealed another Spider-Man suit underneath it. Which made Clint even more confused than he already was (because why was the kid wearing a suit under a suit?) but the boy seemed really focused as he had the nanites swarmed onto Tony’s chest.
“Karen, Ironman vital’s status, project them,” Peter instructed to whoever Karen was. (Clint still didn’t know). His voice still shook despite how certain he tried to hold himself.
“Heart rate detected at 17 bpm. Temperature at 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Respiratory rate and BP- invalid unable to detect. Immediate medical attention required.” A robotic women’s voice sounded and a hologram appeared in front of Tony broadcasting a bunch of medical statistics that Clint did not understand. But apparently a few of the others did because there were tons of gasps and sounds of a few people rushing forward.
A dark skinned girl with her hair up in a bun and who looked fairly young and close to Peter’s age rushed towards them and skidded to her knees once she reached them. She immediately started swiping through the holographic statistics.
“We need to get him to my lab in Wakanda. I can work on him there. See if we can save him.” The girl shouted. “If that is alright with you, Miss.”
She turned around to Pepper.
“I- yes-If you can save him-,” Pepper said. The girl and several Wakandan warriors didn’t wait for her to finish before suddenly swarming around Tony Stark.
“But, Sister,” T’challa said, stepping forward. “We are not close to Wakanda.”
“We can go back the way we came, can’t we?” The girl, who Clint now realized must be Princess Shuri, said like it was obvious.
One of the sorcerers, Wong, started moving his hands in a circle and calling open a portal to Wakanda, presumably.
But the one with the red cloak stepped forward.
“I’m sorry, but those statistics are impossible to heal from,” Strange said, though he winced as he said it.
“Maybe for you,” the Wakanda princess replied. Standing up she played with something her wrist and a few
More nanites swarmed out and formed a gurney in front of her as the warriors, with the help of Peter, carefully lifted Tony up. “But our medical technology is far superior.”
They tried to rush tony through but Peter held on to him tight. His face looked focused down at Tony’s form, like he was still trying to figure something out.
“Boy, if you don’t move, we can’t save him.” Shuri said.
Peter ignored them and before anyone could say anything he reached for Tony’s right arm and pulled. He ripped 5 of the 6 stones off of Tony’s hand.
“You can’t!” Clint shouted.
“I’m not,” he said, looking just as surprised as everybody else. “I just- I think they’re taking his energy or somethin, hurting him. Except that one. I don’t know. I just- my senses—“
Clint realized the one that he left out was a painfully familiar one, the soul stone. Of course the other’s might be taking his life force with their energy. But the soul stone, Clint knew had something to do with life so of course it was probably the one stone to keep him alive.
“We can figure that out later,” Shuri said and pushed Peter away before disappearing through the portal, Pepper following closely behind.
Peter went after them but Clint grabbed his arm. Be carefully took the stones from the Kid’s hand and handed them over to Steve.
“Give them space, let them take care of it,” Clint said. “You did good, kid, without you none of us would know.”
“But I- need to hear— need to hear his heart still beating,” the kid whispered, putting his head down. He was shaking and moving his head back forth, like he was still scanning for danger or looking for Tony.
Oh. Of course. The kid had been relying on Tony’s heartbeat to know the man was still alive. He must have been waiting for it to stop. But before Clint could reassure him another voice spoke up besides the portals.
“If there is anyone else injured our doctors are available to everyone here,” T’challa called out loudly over the former battlefield. “You all are also welcome to rest and recover in our facilities and contact loved ones there as well. Please follow through and our borders are open to all of you while we sort everything out.”
The wizards started making multiple portals to what appeared to be different Wakandan locations as instructed by T’challa and a few other Wakandan leaders.
“Come on, kid, they’ll take care of Tony. But I know for a fact Tony would want us to care for you.” Clint said, putting an arm around Tony’s kid and pulling through the portal that Tony had been pushed through.
The portal immediately closed shut behind them much to their surprise and they found themselves in a busy bustling room. It was polished with all shorts of equipment everywhere and bright lights and holograms. The Princess had stepped back and was shouting orders. They watched as she stepped behind a screen and then reappeared completely cleaned off and moved towards them.
“I need a clean space, we will update you, please step out of my lab.” She said not unkindly. She rushed them, Pepper, and Rhodey out of the room. Peter kept looking back, his ear clearly trained on Tony Stark. A door closed behind them and they found themselves in an equally busy hallway.
Pepper turned immediately towards Peter and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you,” She whispered. And they both started sobbing again.
“I could hear- and he was dying- but it wouldn’t stop, but I kept waiting - and hearing. And it was so loud,” the kid sobbed uncontrollably. It was clear that whatever adrenaline he’d had had finally fizzled out. The panic officially overwhelming him.
Clint felt a little awkward standing there listening and he made eye contact with Rhodey who stepped up and also put an arm on Peter’s shoulder and brushed his other hand through Peter’s hair.
The adrenaline had left Clint too and he could no longer see Tony’s kid in front of him but his own sons. The image shifting between Cooper and Nathaniel. And he could see every cut on the kid’s face as a cut on his own kids’ faces. He could see the harsh and shaky breaths and the held back coughing. He finally thought back to the way Peter had limped up to Tony and the way his arm had folded his arms across himself in what Clint had originally assumed was nervousness. But realized could actually indicate an injury that was hidden.
“The kid would never tell me he was injured,” Tony said.
Clint had come over to Tony’s new cabin upstate and was visiting for a weekend as he did frequently since Tony had stopped him from going on a revenge assassin spree. He worked with Nat in the old Avengers Compound fighting crime and trying to help nations put the world back together after half of its occupants disappeared.
Morgan, Tony’s then two year old, had taken a harsh tumble while running outside and had run straight to the adults on the porch crying. Tony had expertly picked her up and he and Clint patched her back up. She had a broken arm and Clint had helped set it. Perks of being a former shield agent and avenger added with all of Tony’s high tech medical equipment he kept around solely because of Peter Parker and had never gotten rid of despite the kid being…. gone. They were quite the experts at mundane injuries like this. So there was no need to rush her to a hospital.
“This one, on the other hand has no problem showing me an injury and sometimes she likes to pretend she hurt when she isn’t just so she can have a ‘Spider-man sticker’,” Tony said with a huff and holding up a pack of Spider-Man band aids. The little girl was now sleeping in her bed. A custom made Spider-Man cast wrapped securely around her arm.
“Very different from her brother then, I take it?” Clint said as they walked out the girl’s room back down the stairs to the kitchen.
Tony positively beamed like he always did whenever someone referred to Peter Parker as Morgan’s brother. (Even if he was the one who had started saying it.)
“Oh definitely.” Tony said. “One time he thought he pulled off walking into the Tower with an infected stab wound in his arm. Seemed to think Friday wouldn’t have had a protocol put in place that told me whenever he was injured.”
“It was infected!?” Clint asked with shock.
“Yeah kid thought it wasn’t that bad, just a scratch that he’s capable of patching up on his own and would heal fast.” Tony said. “And normally I’d agree with him, he is- was- very capable. But the kid didn’t know the knife was dirty I guess and he has- had- fast healing so normally that injury wouldn’t have been a problem. But I guess it started healing before he could clean it which left him with quite a nasty infection in his arm. Ended up making the kid sick for a couple of days actually.”
“Well that’s no fun,” Clint said.
“Honestly the kid was good at hiding his pain, I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong until Friday told me.” Tony admitted.
Clint carefully pulled Peter out of Rhodey and Pepper’s arms apologetically. He held the boy arms length away with his hands on the boy's shoulders and started scanning the kid.
“You hurt, kid?” Clint asked. Pepper and Rhodey’s eyes widened, clearly kicking themselves for not asking sooner. “Get injured are all?”
“I’m fine,” the boy said, shifting and looking away from Clint. “I heal fast.”
“So you did get hurt?” Clint said.
“I mean it’s not like nobody didn’t,” he replied. “Really nothing bad I swear.”
“So you're not in any pain whatsoever?” Clint said with an eyebrow raised.
“I think it'd be a good idea if we all got checked over,” Pepper said, stepping back towards Peter.
The kid started to frantically shake his head. Glancing between the door that held Tony and the adults before him.
The heartbeat, Clint remembered. Kid wanted the reassurance that Tony was ok by hearing his heartbeat. That would not be good for him if anything went wrong while the doctors were working on him. Clint knew the kid needed to leave.
“Tony will be in the hands of the best doctors in the world,” Clint reassured. “I think he’d like it if his kid got the help he needed. Shuri will keep us updated and once you're all cleared you can come right back to waiting for him, I promise.”
The boy tried to protest again as Clint went to steer him towards a doctor. But those protests suddenly came to a halt when he promptly collapsed into Clint’s outstretched arms