Tony knew that Petra had a rough day. He’d seen the news coverage of her fight with the Lizard. He’d seen her purposely get flung into a brownstone while protecting a bystander. He knew she was probably hurting, but he also knew she was fine. She was resilient. Sometimes, even, he’d forget she wasn’t invincible. She always came out of fights looking a little worse for wear, but never with any injuries obvious enough for concern.
So, as he stood in the doorway of one of the shared bathrooms at the Tower, he was surprised to find her looking a lot less than fine, like, ‘the end scene from Carrie’ less than fine. He might have exaggerated that one, but there was an awful lot of blood. Far more than he was used to seeing on Petra.
She was in her white and red Spider-Woman suit, mask off, pressing a blood-soaked towel to her temple with one hand.
“Hey, Mr. Stark,” she said in an unconcerned tone then lifted the towel to check if her wound was still bleeding. She quickly pressed back down.
“Nice Halloween costume. Un-dead Spider-Woman, pretty original.”
“Thanks, the suit’s authentic.”
“Did you buy Party City’s entire stock of blood for that?”
“I went to Spirit Halloween, actually.” She pulled the towel off again and frowned as more blood streamed down her face.
“Christ, Pete, how long has it been like that?”
“Uh, it hasn’t really slowed down.”
“We’re going to medbay.” Which he knew was a dumb thing to suggest as soon as it came out of his mouth because Petra didn’t like being around two types of people: biologists and doctors.
The glare she turned towards him was unsurprising. “None of your brilliant, god-complex doctors are getting anywhere near my freaky, spider DNA.”
He raised his hands placatingly. “Okay, okay. We’ll do everything ourselves. Let’s go find something to fix your face.”
“My face has never needed fixing.”
“Grab a new towel, kid. I don’t want you dripping blood through the hallways.” He turned from the doorway with the expectation that she’d follow him and headed towards one of the first aid closets (a first aid kit didn’t quite cut it in the Tower). It only took Petra a second to catch up with him.
When they opened the closet, they stood side by side and stared blankly at the array of items, unsure what to grab. They both started pulling out boxes and reading the uses on the labels.
Parker shook a box at him after a moment with her free hand. “Do you think this’ll work?”
He snatched it from her and read the blue lettering: TISSUE ADHESIVE. He scanned the back of the box for a quick understanding of the product. “I think we got a winner.” He grabbed a few things of disinfectant. “C’mon, Pete. I’ll glue you back together.”
They ended up back in the bathroom, Petra sitting on the closed seat of the toilet with her head tilted at a weird angle so Tony wouldn’t shadow the light, holding the adhesive’s now empty box. He’d gotten most of the blood off her face and cleared away from the short cut that reached from the top of her forehead into her hairline. “You just had to get cut in the worst spot, didn’t you?” he complained as he started to apply the adhesive.
“What can I say, I like making life hard for you.”
“You just about took my life when I saw you go through that wall. Seriously Pete, you’re gonna end up giving me a heart attack.”
“Hey, I’ve got nothing to do with your heart condition, Mr. Stark.”
He gave a little hum that meant he 100% believed Petra could end up being the cause of a heart attack then took a step back. “I think we’re good.”
“Awesome.” She gave him a thankful smile. She took the adhesive from him to put it back into the box, but something on the back of the bottle made her pause. “No,” she said like the bottle had personally offended her. “No freaking way.”
Tony knew his expression was probably turning into the look of concern he’d been trying to avoid. “What’s up?”
“It says I can’t get it wet Mr. Stark. How am I supposed to shower?” A whine built up in her tone near the end of her sentence.
“Take a bath.”
“What about my hair? There’s blood in my hair. There’s no way I can wash my hair and not accidently get this wet.” She motioned to her temple then proceeded to stuff the bottle back into the box and toss it onto the counter next to the sink.
She had a fair point. He started to form solutions in the back of his mind. “We could just shave it off,” he suggested because he knew she’d be absolutely appalled by it.
“No,” she bemoaned like the world was ending but then her expression changed from grief to unbearably stubborn. “I’m just going to get it wet. I should’ve at least healed enough by now that it won’t pour blood if it opens back up.”
“Nuh-uh. No way, kid. We didn’t go through all that trouble just for you to wash it off.”
“But Mr. Stark,” and she looked truly distraught, “it’s going to dry and get all crusty and then my hair is going to be so full of knots and then it’s going to hurt so bad when I have to brush it out. I have to wash it.”
An idea finally clicked in his head. “Alright, I know what we’re going to do”
Hopeful eyes stared back at him.
“Kitchen. Grab your shampoo.”
Tony took the time Petra spent grabbing her hair supplies from her bathroom to change into a shirt he wouldn’t mind getting blood water on. When he got to the kitchen, Petra was already sitting on the counter, still in her suit, taking out the pinned-up braids she always wore underneath the mask.
“So, what’s your plan Mr. Stark?” she asked him as she shook out one of her braids.
“I’m going to wash your hair in the sink,” he said, moving to plug the drain and turn on the hot water. “You can lay on the counter with your head at the sink and I can wash your hair and make sure the glue doesn’t get wet.”
She gave him a nod. “Okay.” She pulled the last of her hair free. Tony could already see stripes of blood that had dried. She grabbed the shampoo and conditioner next to her then clambered onto the counter beside the sink. They waited in relative silence until the sink was mostly full then Petra handed her bottles over to Tony and laid down so the back of her head touched the water.
“Grab me a hand towel?”
Tony handed her one. She folded it and put it under her neck.
“Comfortable?” he asked with a bit of a snort.
“Yup.”
Carefully, he brought water higher and higher on Petra’s scalp until all her hair was damp minus the roots right next to the cut. The water on his fingers was tinged pink by the time he grabbed the shampoo bottle and he ended up leaving a colored handprint around it. Making sure to leave the glue undisturbed, he massaged the rose scented product into Petra’s hair. The bubbles foaming up turned a darker and darker shade of pink the longer he continued. He tried to take his mind away from the fact that he was rinsing blood out of a high schooler’s hair and instead focused on the warmth of the water and the softness of the hair at his fingertips. He reached the point where he was confident all the blood that’d dried was loose enough to rinse away and he repeated the process of bringing cupped hands of water up Petra’s scalp. “Hey,” he said even though the silence had been comfortable and Petra’s eyes were closed, “you know how people always have photos of their kids taking baths in the sink when they were babies?”
“Sure,” she responded softly without bothering to open her eyes.
“Does this mean you’re officially my kid now?”
In a fluid motion, Petra’s arm was bent backwards over her head so her hand was in the water and the next thing Tony knew he was getting splashed with water. “I’m nobody’s kid, Mr. Stark,” she said firmly then retracted her arm back to her side.
“Right, right, my teenager,” he said even though he knew that wasn’t what she meant.
“I’m pretty sure you can’t start claiming parental rights to me until we’ve at least played one game of catch.”
“I’m wishing I was there to catch you from flying into that brownstone today.” He was pretty sure the shampoo was rinsed out well enough now.
“Yeah, Dr. Connors sure wasn’t in a good mood.”
“Just add it onto the list of reasons you hate biologists. Sit up for me so we can condition.”
She brought herself up, leaning back on extended arms so her wet hair didn’t brush against her suit. “I don’t hate biologists. And Dr. Connors is technically a geneticist.”
Tony twisted the excess water from her hair then squeezed conditioner into his palm and started working it through her long hair. “Geneticists are the worst.” He was specifically thinking of Richard Parker (forever called Dick in his mind) and the brand on Petra’s back. He remembered his first time he'd learned that the section of burnt flesh was given to Petra by her mother’s husband. He remembered making a comment on cattle branding and how Petra's response had just been It’s not a brand Mr. Stark. Don’t you know scientists like to label their experiments.
Petra gave a hum of agreement at his statement but didn’t respond any further. Her eyes were closed again.
He combed the conditioner through her hair, trying to enjoy the silence instead of focus on mad scientists who used children as experiments for cross-species genetics. “M’kay, Petie, let’s rinse this out and then you’re all set.”
She leaned back down and Tony ran his fingers through her hair under the water until he decided it was good enough to call it done.
Later that night, after the sink had been drained and Petra had gotten the rest of herself all cleaned up; Tony, Pepper, and Petra sank into their favorite Penthouse couch. Petra leaned into Pepper and Pepper leaned into Tony and the man found so much peace in the moment he didn’t even complain when Pepper chose to put on a terrible 90s rom-com.