And guide me home
“How long?” Peter’s weak voice asked.
Tony sighed and turned his wrist over. “Half an hour,” Tony replies, “...now half an hour and one minute.”
That’s how long they had been trapped in that tiny shelter. Tony had almost grown numb to the pain in his back, all physical sensation becoming absent, and pins and needles riddled his legs as they hadn’t moved from their sitting position against the wall. His blood simply refused to reach his feet anymore.
With a second sigh, Tony’s hand fell back into its familiar motions of carding through Peter’s damp hair. The boy lacked any of the energy he displayed previously on the battlefield. His blinks were heavy, and his chest fell slower than before.
Tony couldn’t help the overwhelming worry that sat in his stomach.
“Do you think they forgot about us?” Peter asks.
Tony’s eyes widen as he searches for the doubt in the boy’s comment, but he can’t detect anything. The question was purely genuine.
“They didn’t forget,” Tony whispers, hoping to believe what he was saying. “The trackers are down, remember? They must just be having a hard time finding where we are.”
Peter hums his response.
Tony tries to quickly change the subject. “How are you feeling?” Right now, you are the most important thing.
Peter hums again. “'M tired.”
Tony watches the boy’s eyes flutter closed, and in a spur of panic, the man quickly taps the boy’s face a few dozen times. A haphazard attempt to keep Peter from slipping away.
“Nope, no, sorry bud. No sleeping right now. Gotta keep awake.”
“Mmm-ugh,” Peter grumbles, trying and failing to push Tony’s hand away from his temple.
“You are losing a lot of blood kiddo. We gotta keep those eyes open.”
Can’t have you leaving us. Leaving me.
“I’m fine,” Peter whispers, “my healing. ‘Member?”
Tony stares at the child sadly as Peter tries to fight for consciousness. In his attempt to stay awake, he has pried his eyes open as wide as they can go, but even that looks like it is draining the boy.
“Yeah, Pete. Yeah, I remember.”
But right now, that may not be enough.
….
Forty-five minutes. They had been trapped for forty- five minutes, and Peter’s healing seemed to be doing next to nothing to save the child.
Sure, he had been conscious for longer than Tony would have had he been in the exact scenario, but that didn’t calm the billionaire’s nerves in the slightest. The only thing he could do was watch as Peter’s eyes would pop open every few seconds as he forced himself awake, and his health slowly diminished.
“Tony,” Peter starts, his voice hoarse, “my head… hurts”
Tony brushes brown curls off of the boy’s temple. “I know, kiddo. I know. I’m sorry.”
There were small tears forming in Peter’s eyes, and he blinks a few times, letting them slip-free and stream over his face and into his hairline.
Peter had his head rested on Tony’s thighs; the sweat running off the boy and soaking into the material of Tony’s pants. Up until this point, Tony hadn’t trusted himself to let go of the boy.
Maybe some part of him believed that he was the one keeping Peter with him. He was the glue sticking the boy to the Earth. He was the air be breathed into the child’s lungs. His remaining blood was being pumped into the spider-kid’s emptying veins.
So when he removes his hands from Peter’s back and hair, the teen’s eyes snap up in surprise.
Instead, Tony grabs the hem of his shirt and quickly removes it from his torso. The blue light from his arc-reactor brightens without the material shield in front of it. Peter still looks skeptical as the man presses the dark long-sleeve onto the wound tightly.
The child instantly hisses loudly, and his hissing then turned to whimpers as he buries his face into Tony’s pant leg.
“That bandage wasn’t working anymore,” Tony explains as Peter shakes. “Bled right through. We need more pressure on the wound. I’m sorry, Petey.”
Peter just cries as Tony holds the wadded shirt in place.
God, even his crying sounds weak.
Tony presses his lips together and leans his head back against the wall behind him. Even though he thought it selfish, he found himself trying to block the world out. Block out Peter’s soft sobs; block out the stale, coppery scent that has filled the small room; block out the chill now racking over his torso from the absence of his shirt, or the pins and needles riddling his feet.
Block it all out. Everything until it is just the soft sounds of his own breathing filling his ears.
Block it out until his legs aren't the only things that are numb anymore.
….
Tony jolts awake with a soft gasp.
He didn’t even realize that he was falling asleep, and hot guilt washes over him. Here he was telling Peter to keep himself awake, while he couldn’t even manage to do that. What kind of mentor was he?
Wait… Peter!
Tony tries not to move the still body resting in his lap as he adjusts himself so he can get a clear look at the boy. Peter’s eyes were shut, his chest rising and falling in short, shallow breaths.
A spike of panic makes Tony’s heart skip a beat, and he quickly threads his fingers into Peter’s hair, his secondhand coming to cup the child’s cheek. His anxiety only rose when he felt how chilly the teen’s pale skin was. The sweat gathering under his calloused palm was enough to make him want to burst into sobs.
Clearly, Peter’s healing was working less and less. Tony just hoped that they weren't too late.
The wadded shirt -- that was still resting over Peter’s wound -- was damp and reeked of blood. Tony grimaced as he pressed down, and drew a low whine from the resting boy.
“Come on, Pete, wakey-wakey,” Tony says, his voice urgent as he tries to shake the boy awake with one hand.
“Huh?” Peter mumbles, his eyes opening half-way. “Mis’er Sar…”
The boy’s voice trails as his partly opened eyes dance around the dark room and finally rest unsteadily on Tony’s face.
“Wha… where we…?” Peter sounds half asleep as his words slur around in his mouth.
Tony can feel the sobs building in his chest. Obviously, the team wasn’t coming to get them. Without the help of the suit, they were helpless, and Peter was going to bleed to death, right here in the remains of an old HYDRA storage shed.
Tears fell from Tony’s eyes and rolled down his neck, feeling hot and sticky as they decided to rest on his collarbone.
“Oh, no... no cry,” Peter mumbles sadly, trying and failing to raise his hand and wipe Tony’s tears away.
Tony can only bite his lip and curl around the boy, trying to protect him from the world as he slowly slipped away. As he did the one thing that Tony was only trying to save him from.
“I love you, Peter,” Tony whispers, knowing the boy would be able to hear it. “So damn much. You will never know how much I love you.”
Peter is quiet for a moment before whispering back, “Ditto.”
That elicited a small, wet chuckle from Tony, and he accepted the response, knowing it would be the best he was going to get from the child.
He ignored the feeling of sweat as he ran his hand through the boy’s curls.
“More than you’ll ever know.”
….
When a loud cracking noise sounded from outside the blocked doorway, Tony’s arms wrapped protectively around Peter. The boy had lost consciousness a few minutes ago, so he didn’t protest to the sudden restriction.
When the sheltered was flooded with light, Tony’s eyes screwed shut and he turned his head. Even though the outside sun was dim, the light was an assault to the billionaire’s vision, and he barely held back a hiss.
“Tony?”
Tony forced himself to look back, and he saw a huge figure entering the shed through the new opening in the trunk-barricade.
“Hello?” Tony asked, squinting at the dark figure.
The person kneeled down, and in better focus, Tony could make out the facial features of Steve. His face was full of worry, and Tony could swear he was tearing up again.
They didn’t forget.
“Peter needs help,” Tony says quickly, “now.”
Steve nods and takes the boy in his arms, Tony letting him reluctantly. Suddenly, Scott was standing next to him, almost appearing out of thin air, and Tony had to remind himself that Lang was able to shrink before he gave himself a heart attack.
“Let me help you, Tony,” Scott says, sounding kinder and less down-to-business then Steve had been.
Tony nods and allows the younger man to wrap an arm around his back and haul the Iron Man to his feet. Together, they made their way out of the shelter and into the now dusky evening.
The quinjet was parked not far away, and Tony could make out Steve as he now ran towards the ship with Peter tucked in his grasp. Clint stood by the open door, waving them in.
“Come on!” The archer called, his voice echoing into the twilight. “We’re all revved up!”
When Tony entered the jet, he saw Peter already lying on a medical cot. Without invitation, he crawled in right beside the boy.
Steve made a noise to protest the invasion of space, but he quickly shut his mouth and Tony was glad. Rogers would have had to answer to him later if he tried to pry Tony from Peter at this moment.
Instead, the super-soldier got to work preparing medical supplies as the jet took off in the direction of the compound.
Tony just layed in silence as he watched Peter’s chest barely rise. Relief washed over him like a cooling wave. Because now he knew; somewhere, deep in the unconscious mind of Peter Parker, he was alive and fighting.
….
When Tony wakes for the second time that day, he is lying in a hospital bed in the medbay. The room is, thankfully, dark, and the small digital clock on the wall reads, 11:57 pm.
He lays on his back for a few seconds, fatigue almost catching back up with him before he remembers the whole reason he was in the room in the first place.
“Peter?” He says, voice dry as if the teenager might just materialize out of thin air.
He doesn't get a response, but then his ears detect the second breathing pattern, and his head whips to the right. Peter is sleeping on a bed not ten feet from Tony’s own.
And, thankfully, his chest is rising and falling at a normal rate. The heart monitor next to his bed beeps steadily, and Tony smiles softly.
He’s okay.
With a groan, Tony pushes himself from his bed, and then eventually, to his feet. Fatigue still plagued his mind, so, slowly but surely, Tony makes his way to the child’s bedside.
Careful not to disturb the sleeping spider-kid, Tony crawls in beside Peter.
He only feels content once he was laying with his arm wrapped around Peter’s chest. So he could feel him inhale. Hear him exhale with that little whistle. Smell the absence of blood, and instead, the faint coconut shampoo that May buys for the boy.
Peter’s curls tickle under Tony's eyes as the man tucks his head onto the pillow next to his kid.
Finally, he let his eyes fall shut, and now, knowing that Peter was going to be okay and safe, he actually allowed himself to guiltlessly drift off and rest.