Saturday. The best day, in the Avengers’ opinions. Yeah, friday is nice, with it’s team dinners, but saturday? Nothing beats Avengers Game Nights.
It is right in the middle of a rowdy argument about whether or not Clint stole some extra monopoly money when no one was looking because Clint you were definitely losing last time I saw you! when Tony’s phone rings.
It stops the argument in its tracks because 1, everyone always silences their phones during game nights because no one is allowed to interrupt (unless it’s a call to assemble and in that case FRIDAY will send the call through), and 2, the macarena, of all things, is the ringtone.
Clint leans over to squint at the contact from where he is perched on the arm of the couch.
“Who the fuck is Ned ?”
Tony’s eyebrow quirks up in surprise and he answers the phone.
He puts the phone on speaker and turns back to the game on the coffee table in front of him, beginning to organize his many properties and money. “Ned!”
“Mr. Stark?” He ignores the shocked faces of the Avengers at the clearly young voice on the line.
“The one and only! You’re on speaker. The Avengers are here. What’s shakin’?” He tries his hardest not to smile smugly at the confused faces of his teammates. Not once would any of them ever have thought they would witness the Tony Stark interact willingly with a child. He just continues to count out the paper money in front of him, easily at 500 thousand right now, after all, he has hotels on every property and already owns half the board.
“ The Avengers? ” Ned squeaks, “Oh wow… Er, um, well,” he shakes the reverence from his voice, “I’m at Peter’s house and-”
Tony’s face lights up. “You and Pete? That’s great! I’ll send Happy to pick you two up. We’re having Avengers Game Night.”
“Well, Mr. Stark,” Ned begins, worry in his voice, “The thing is…”
“Yes?”
“Peter’s not here,” he blurts out, “We were halfway through building our new Lego Star Wars set- It’s really cool, it’s got like 10,000 pieces and-” “Ned?”
“Oh, right, yeah. So, we were building it and then there was like, this scream, right down the street, so Peter went out to see if he could help-”
“Oh, then tell him to swing on by. Happy can pick just you up then.”
“No, Mr. Stark-”
“Oh and tell him he’s not allowed to go out when the, uh-” Tony twirls his hand in the air, trying to find the words. “Mr. Stark-” “The onsie is under refabrication, yeah?” “ Mr. Stark! ”
Tony is shaken out of his reverie by Ned’s tone. Ned never yells, and certainly not at Tony Stark.
“What?”
“I haven’t heard from Peter in almost an hour.”
Tony snorts. Kids these days . “Well that’s okay, I can just have Karen tell him to come by.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Ned swallows audibly, “ Peter went out. ” Tony freezes, knowing the implications of what the boy just said. “ Peter , Mr. Stark…” The billionaire blinks, mouth suddenly dry. “He didn’t have the onsie…” Tony’s world slowly collapses around him at the grave implication.
“I’m scared, Mr. Stark… This isn’t like him…”
That snaps him out of his motionless state. He jumps up from his place on the rug and immediately starts yelling at FRIDAY to contact Karen about Peter’s last known location. Tony just hopes that Peter was wearing the watch he got him that transmits his location and vitals.
The Avengers shout in alarm.
“Ned? Ned! Happy is going to come get you and bring you back here. I’m going to send out the Avengers to try and find Peter.” Hearing this, the Avengers immediately scatter to suit up.
“Okay,” Ned’s voice is shakey.
Tony pauses. “Ned?” He is careful to keep his voice soft and reassuring, “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find him.” He hangs up.
Tony double taps his reactor, allowing the nanoparticles to wash over him, leaving only his head exposed.
The team gathers around him, clad in battle gear. They’re ready, but certainly frustrated at the lack of information.
“Tony, who the hell are these kids?” Clint demands.
“Who’s Peter?” Steve asks.
Tony closes his eyes and breathes in and out in an effort to calm himself over the increasing volume of shouted questions.
“ Peter ,” he begins, “Is my intern. My personal intern. He’s… He’s the smartest kid, no, person I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing and I’ll be damned if something happens to him. Got it? ”
The Avengers are quiet. Natasha nods slightly. And so that’s it.
The Avengers group up on the quinjet platform with Tony breaking them into teams. “Bucky, Natasha, you two take Bayside. Sam, Clint, take Cambria Heights.” They all nod and board the jet. “ Cap, you’re with me in Queens Village. Bruce,” he looks at the scientist, who looks a nervous, “We won’t be needing the bug guy,” Bruce visibly relaxes, “But we may need your expertise. Get ready up in medical for any incoming injuries.”
Bruce turns around and goes back inside the building to get medical ready.
Steve boards the quinjet and it takes off, following right behind Iron Man and he leads his team toward Queens.
“Alright guys listen up,” Tony calls into the comms, “I’m having FRIDAY send you a picture.”
The resulting ping tells him they have received the picture. “ This is Peter Parker. Resident genius along with myself living at the tower when he’s not with his aunt in Queens.”
“How come we’ve never seen him around before?” Sam asks.
Tony winces. “He’s, well, he’s a private guy . Likes to stay on his own floor when he’s not in my lab.” Tony will not out him as Spiderman, nope, no way.
“And tell me again why your intern is out in the middle of the night saving damsels in distress?” Tony knows even without seeing it that Natasha is giving him ‘the eyebrow’. “He’s a good kid, okay? Likes to help people. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“Alright,” Tony announces through the comms once they’ve reached Queens, “Time to split up, gang.”
The back of the quinjet opens and Steve hops out. Tony easily catches him and sets him down in an alleyway as the jet speeds off to drop the others at their designated locations.
“Check everywhere you can think of,” Tony calls over the comms, “Even the tops of buildings.”
The team voices their affirmatives.
It’s 37 minutes later when Bucky’s scarcely heard voice crackles to life over the comms. “Found him.”
Tony halts his search of a dumpster not far from Peter’s house.
“Where?”
“Corner of 27th and 51st.”
Tony retracts his helmet and turns to Steve, eyes a little frantic.
“Go,” Steve tells him, “I’ll catch a ride with the others”
The helmet immediately rematerializes and Tony is blasting off towards the given location.
“Stark,” Bucky interrupts mid flight, surprising Tony, as the recovering assassin always talks as little as possible, “He’s hurt,” a pause, “Bad.”
“Is he-,” he swallows. His tongue feels heavy, “Is he breathing?” Tony asks, voice cracking. He’s almost afraid to know the answer.
The few seconds it takes for the soldier to answer are some of the longest in Tony’s life.
“Barely.”
Tony puts the rest of the power into the thrusters and his heart rate soars.
Next thing he knows, the armor is touching down. The helmet retracts and Tony feels like he took a punch to the gut.
Bucky is sitting in the middle of someone’s lawn. Luckily all the lights in the surrounding houses are off, signaling that no one has seen anything. In the soldier’s arms is Peter, pale and bloodless. The concerning gash slowly oozing blood from Peter’s forehead is the least of his injuries. Right now, Tony can see at least five different stab wounds.
There is a trail of blood leading from an alleyway across the street, telling Tony that Peter dragged himself from wherever he was hurt. He was probably trying to run away , his mind unhelpfully supplies.
Tony lets out a shaky breath. He cannot fall apart. Not here, not now. His kid needs him.
He kneels down in front of the soldier, brushing the matted hair out of Peter’s eyes.
“Peter? Can you hear me bud. It’s Tony.” He isn’t surprised that he is met with silence.
“Alright, up we go.” Bucky assists Stark by situating Peter into the metal man’s arms. “It’s gonna be okay, champ. Gonna fix you up real well.”
Before he brings up the helmet, he looks at Barnes, really looks at him. “Thank you.”
He gently lifts off, cradling the unconscious teenager in his arms and he begins his 11 minute flight back to the tower.
“Bruce?” He calls over the comms. “I’m here,” the scientist responds, “Cho is here too. I took the liberty of calling her just in case.”
“Oh thank god. I’ve got Peter. He’s in a bad way, Bruce.”
“ETA?” Ever the professional.
“ETA… eight minutes. I can push for eight.”
He makes it in six.
The Iron Man armour lands on the loading dock only to be met with a small group of paramedics with a stretcher.
Tony carefully puts Peter on the stretcher, careful not to bump any injuries.
He tries to run and follow the doctors as they rush the boy inside, but his legs refuse to cooperate.
Instead he falls to his knees, armour dematerializing.
The team finds him there a few minutes later as the quinjet touches down.
As soon as the wheels touch the landing pad, Steve is off the jet and rushing to Tony’s side.
“Tony, are you okay? Where’s Peter?” He places a large hand on the man’s shoulder.
The contact seems to shake Tony out of whatever trance he was in. He brings a hand to his face, wiping away the tears that had fallen. Steve helps him up, carefully guiding him inside when he lists to the side. “He’s, uh,” he clears his throat, but only effectively makes a choked off sound, “He’s in emergency surgery. He had some,” he motions at his stomach where he saw the stab wounds, “ Oh god .”
He collapses into a flimsy plastic waiting room chair.
Several hours later, Dr. Cho walks in to find six Avengers have taken up residence in the waiting room, still fully clad in their battle gear. Upon seeing her, they immediately jump up, awaiting any news on the intern of Tony Stark.
“Is Peter okay?” Tony blurts out before she has even had the chance to speak.
Dr. Cho plasters on the patented doctor smile. “Yes, Peter just came out of surgery. He had five stab wounds to his abdomen. One pierced his stomach and another nicked a major artery, but fortunately, given his healing abilities, my team was able to streamline the process. Peter is going to be just fine, given he is allowed proper time to rest.”
The room of heroes collectively let out a breath of relief and Tony follows the doctor to Peter’s room.
The heavy silence of the hospital room is broken a few hours later.
“Tony, I know you have been under a lot of stress about Peter’s injuries, but we’ve got a few questions you need to answer.”
Tony turns around to face Cap and is surprised to see the rest of the team’s curious and worried faces behind him.
Tony sighs, exhausted to his soul from the events of the day. He sits down on the unforgiving plastic chair. God, I should really upgrade these .
“Alright,” he sniffs, steadying himself, “What would you like to know?”
“Dr. Cho brought up something about healing abilities,” Natasha launches right into the first question.
Tony raises his eyebrows and breathes in deep, letting the air out slowly as a drawn out sigh.
“Wow, getting right into it. Okay…” Sorry, Peter , “Peter has… He has abilities. Similar to how you ,” he points at Steve, “have enhancements from the super soldier serum. One of these abilities is an accelerated healing rate.”
“That would come in handy in the field, that’s for sure,” Sam says easily, lessening the tension in the room. The group relaxes slightly, feeling more comfortable.
“What are the other abilities?” Steve asks. Tony can tell the guy is genuinely curious. Peter will be excited to know that Captain America was interested him. Well, after he gets over having his identity exposed, that is.
“Let’s see,” he makes a thoughtful motion, “Accelerated healing, increased endurance and speed, super strength. He’s got this, like, sixth sense for danger. It’s pretty cool actually. Also he’s…” Tony pauses, “He’s, well, sticky .”
Natasha gets a knowing glint in her eye and she steps forward. “How did he get these abilities?”
Tony knows she probably already knows the answer.
“He was bitten by a radioactive spider,” he rushes out, turning away from his friends. He prays to any god that will listen that Peter will forgive him for revealing his identity.
There is a brief silence.
“Wait,” Sam and Clint speak at the same time, “Is he-”
“Spiderman.”
Everyone turns to the doorway.
The Winter Soldier is leaning against the door frame not looking at any of them, arms crossed casually. He was so quiet, Tony honestly forgot he was even there.
And hearing him speak twice in one night? Well, that’s unheard of .
“ You knew?! ” Steve’s puppy dog eyes are confused and saddened that his best friend hadn’t told him anything about this.
Barnes finally looks at them, eyes questioning. “You didn’t?”
The room collectively blinks, holding their breath.
He shrugs. The dam breaks.
“ No! ” they yell.
“How did you know?”
“When did you find out?”
Bucky watches them all as they shout questions at him. Honestly, they’re all children…
He straightens up and shrugs. They all go quiet.
“Followed Spiderman home one night. It’s what any good spy would have done.” He purposefully glances at Natasha, who glares at him in barely concealed annoyance. He smiles, or whatever can be considered a smile on the Winter Soldier’s face. Natasha’s rolls her eyes, knowing the joke for what it is.
Clint, seeing this exchange, looks back and forth between the two before yelling, “Hey! I’m a spy too!”
“Okay, цирковой мальчик (circus boy).” Natasha pats him on the back and walks over to sit next to Stark, who looks to be having a small nuclear explosion inside his head.
Clint nods righteously before realizing he has no idea what she said. He whirls around. “What was that? What did you say?”
“It was a compliment,” the soldier tells him.
“Hmpf,” Clint crosses his arms, chin held high, “As it should be.”
When Peter finally comes to, it’s to soft, friendly chatter in the air around him. His mind is drifting gently, a sure sign he’s on the good stuff. There is a distant pain in his stomach, but the feeling of being enveloped in feathers masks it easily. Peter keeps his breathing slow and steady, content to sleepily listen to the calming voices around him.
“I know you’re awake, Peter,” one of the voices cuts through, silencing the others.
Peter blinks his eyes open slowly.
Thankfully, the lights have been dimmed and his sensitive eyes are grateful.
“H’d you know?” he slurs. Whether his mouth moves slowly because he is tired or because of the drugs, he’ll never know.
“Heart rate picked up,” the voice supplies.
Peter’s eyes flick over to Bucky, now putting a voice to the face. He’s never heard him speak before.
“Hello Mr. Sergeant James Barnes Sir,” Peter says, coming more into himself.
The ex-assassin smiles gently. “Please, call me Bucky.”
Peter blinks. “Okay, Mr. Bucky Sir.”
“Oh, that’s just unfair.”
Peter’s gaze flickers over to Tony. “Sorry, Mr. Stark.”
He blinks again, scrunching his face up in confused thought. “Why are you all here? What happened?”
Tony opens his mouth to speak, when suddenly, the door to the room bursts open and Ned comes flying in, breathing heavily and already talking at a mile per second.
“Peter! Oh my gosh, you’re awake! I went down to the kitchen to get something to drink- which, by the way, is a totally cool kitchen. I mean, the avenger’s kitchen ?! Wow! Anyway, I was on my way back and I heard you talking from down the hall so I ran all the way here and wow you got stabbed ?! Peter what were you thinking ?! Why would you even try doing that without your stuff?! I mean, it was kind of badass and you also saved that lady- at least, that’s what FRIDAY told me. She’s so cool. Being able to create an AI like that, it’s revolutionary . I can’t believe I got to speak with her, she’s just so-” the boy abruptly stops, blinking owlishly at all the faces staring at him, “Um. Right. Glad you’re awake.”
He walks over to the bed, pulling over a nearby chair, and sits down close to his best friend.
Peter shivers, Ned’s words recalling unpleasant memories of the night before. He brings a hand to his stomach, now very aware of the tug of stitches every time he breathes.
“Are you feeling okay, Pete?” Tony asks softly, breaking the room out of it’s trance.
Everyone returns to their relaxed states.
Peter sits up, masking his wince with a small smile. “Yeah, I’m good, Mr. Stark.”
“Of course you are,” Tony responds easily, but leans over to adjust Peter’s morphine drip anyway. He sighs and settles back into his chair.
“I can’t believe you went into a situation like that without your suit. Or your web shooters! Honestly, you’re giving me gray hair, kid.”
Peter’s eyes go wide and he leans in conspiratorially. “You can’t talk about my Spidermanning around the avengers , Mr. Stark,” he whisper yells.
Tony blinks, knowing said avengers heard everything Peter just said. Yep, the good stuff is definitely kicking in .
“They know,” he tells him, “A few too many questionable variables. Kind of had to tell them at that point.”
Peter looks crestfallen and stares down at his hands.
Tony puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s okay, kid. Nothing’s really changed. You don’t have to worry about your identity getting leaked with them. On the plus side, now you can hang out in the common room and not be holed up in the lab all the time.”
Peter smiles at that. “I guess you're right.”
One Week Later
Saturday. The best day. Nothing beats Avengers Game Nights. Well, unless a certain spiderling gets himself stabbed.
Right now, said spider-kid is sitting cross legged on the ceiling above the common room’s coffee table. A few hours earlier, he was helping Tony Stark work on tech improvements for the Iron Man suits and now he’s playing cards Against Humanity with the Avengers. Seriously, what even is his life?
Sam is currently the judge for the card What do old people smell like?
Natasha’s answer is a windmill full of corpses . “I think that’s fairly accurate,” she shrugs, “They’re close enough to death.”
Bucky’s answer is Nickelback . His nose is scrunched up in confusion. “What even is Nickelback?” he mutters to himself.
Ned’s is all you can eat shrimp for $4.99 , which earns a loud laugh from Peter.
Clint answers with the dentist . “It was the only card I could use!”
Tony’s answer is homeless people . He crosses his arms. “I said what I said.”
Bruce’s is leprosy . “Because of the dramatic aging of skin with the disease, I found the smells to be remarkably similar when treating patients in third world countries.” Clint blinks. “You’re supposed to answer with a joke, not rational answers ,” the archer complains.
Steve says grandma , blushing as the others cackle at his good nature. “I can’t use the other cards, guys,” he tries to reason, “I can’t say elderly people smell like,” he glances at one of his cards, “ farting and then walking away .” The others just laugh harder.
Peter drops down from his spot on the ceiling, casually doing a flip halfway down.
“Be careful, kid!” Tony voices, “You just got stabbed, like, a week ago.”
“I’m healed up fine, Mr. Stark,” Peter declares, “Besides, I stopped a bank robbery yesterday and I’m not even sore!”
The billionaire pauses. “Umm, yeah, we’re gonna talk about that later. Karen never told me anything about a robbery.” He pretends not to notice Ned’s eyes widen as he sunk further into the chair. Pfft, kids these days with their hacking and stopping bank robberies…
Sam holds his hand out for Peter’s card. Peter smiles smugly and hands it over, glancing over to Steve as he does so.
Sam begins to read. “And Peter’s card is-” He snorts and then bites his lip in an attempt to stop himself from laughing. Failing, he busts out laughing, tears forming in his eyes.
Sam can’t even attempt to form words through the howling laughter, so Natasha grabs his card to read it, with Bucky, Clint, and Tony looking over her shoulder.
Soon they, too, are a hysterical laughing mess on the floor. Well, Clint and Tony are. Natasha and Bucky are smiling smugly at Steve.
“What is it?” Steve calls, “What’s so funny?!”
He grabs the card from where it had fallen under the coffee table and reads it for himself.
He sighs, a breathy laugh catching in his throat.
He turns to Peter, “It is true I guess.”
Sam snatches the card from Steve’s hand and slaps the freedom card on top of the pile, declaring it the winner.
Peter smiles to himself, looking over his newfound family. He kind of wishes he didn’t have to get stabbed to find it, but he’s glad nonetheless.