Chapter 11
Clint Barton’s speciality has always been long-ranged firing.
As a highly-trained marksman with an unmistakably accurate shot, he doesn’t really see the need to come off the rooftop he’s perched on, loading and firing and destroying his targets dead-on every time. It what he’s always done and what he’ll probably always do, right until the day he retires; call him selfish, but he’d rather leave his teammates to do all the upfront battling and take out the targets from afar. Even if his bow does turn into the world’s coolest baton now (a precaution Stark advises he take and take it he did), the Avengers fare much better at close combat than he.
Doombots aren’t much of a threat anymore. Judging by the fact that they’ve hardly changed over the years the Avengers have been dealing with them, Doom isn’t exactly very creative with what he chooses to unleash upon the streets of New York - it’s such a commonplace sight, now, that even the locals are beginning to grow accustomed to the sight of them. From the rooftop of this police station, he can see people still sitting outside the nearest coffee shop, watching the battle take place as if they were watching a parade. It’s only the tourists that run away screaming nowadays. He’d laugh if he weren’t otherwise occupied.
“Watch your sixth, Legolas!”
Clint spins faster than a freight train, bowstring pulled tautly. The Doombot, clearly not expecting to be noticed so soon, rears back as the arrow hits the space between its eyes and explodes upon contact. The sheer force of the blowout decapitates it in a mess of wires and jagged shards of metal and the body, separated from its power source, promptly takes a swan-dive to the ground. Clint doesn’t dwell on how disturbing it is to watch them die up so close; instead focuses his undivided attention back onto picking off the Doombots crowding Thor.
“You good, Legolas?”
“Stop calling me Legolas,” Clint drawls, hardly paying attention to Tony’s voice in his comm.
“You like it.”
“It’s rather fitting,” Bucky adds bemusedly.
The supersoldier has two guns attached to his back and yet he doesn’t use either, opting instead to rip the heads off the Doombots that try to go near a crowd of screaming tourists with only his arms. It would have been an impressive sight if Clint didn’t know the guy as well as he does; it’s hard to admire a man when you’re aware he’s gotten his arm stuck to the fridge like an angry and oversized magnet, too.
Steve - ever the Debbie Downer - warns, “what did I say about joking around on the comms?”
The archer can see the man in red, white and blue only a few meters from the base of the police station. He has no trouble decapitating the Doombots, what with the force he throws his shield back and forth with - like some overpowered Frisbee, he’s always thought. “All I need is the luscious long hair,” Clint comments out of pure good humour, grinning to himself.
“You’re too ugly to be Legolas," Sam drones, waving at Clint from where he’s spinning through the air, letting his wings slice through the Doombots who try to tackle to him to the ground. For only a moment, the sharpshooter stops firing arrows to flip him the bird (hah). He continues, “and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you ride a horse before. You have to be able to ride a horse to be considered as cool as Legolas.”
“Where would one get a horse in New York?” Thor asks loudly. His voice is strained as he slams his hammer into the stomach of countless Doombots, immobilising them until Natasha is available to come and decapitate them.
Tony hums. “You guys want a horse AI in the Tower? I can do a horse AI. I’ll even make a- what do they do? Jumping? I can make a horse jumping course on the gym floor.”
“Guys,” Steve says again.
“A horse AI,” Clint repeats.
“I’m game," Natasha says, characteristically sounding amused and somehow so monotone all at once. It’s the first thing she’s said other than affirming orders given to her by Steve or Tony. “I've always wanted to ride a horse properly. I watch it on TV sometimes."
"Who knew the Black Widow likes horses?" Tony laughs over the familiar whine of his repulsors. The sharpshooter watches a blast of brilliant blue carve a hole right through the chest of a Doombot as the Iron Man suit swing low to the ground beside it. It only serves to stutter its steps and so it moves to aim its own gun towards Tony, but another merciless blast to the forehead takes it down before it even gets a chance to charge it’s shot. "You're like Tina from Bob's Burgers. Really edgy, but horse-obsessed.”
Clint grins. "You watch Bob's Burgers?"
"I’ve been exposed. Surprise, I sometimes watch shitty cartoons.”
"And I sometimes watch horses. Guess we both lost our dignity today, Stark."
“Guys!” Steve snaps, frustrated.
The sound of Sam’s wings cutting the air catches Clint’s attention and he turns around to see the man himself touching down on the rooftop, eyes warm behind the red tint of his goggles. Even from a few meters away, Clint can see the layer of sweat that sheens his exposed arm; can see his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. “Mind- mind if I sit? Just for a bit?” he asks wearily. Compared to how tinny he’d sounded over the comm, his voice is jarringly clear. “I’ve been flying for an hour straight. There are so many fucking- fucking robots. So many .”
Clint takes his hand off the bowstring to stick him a thumbs-up. The guy is only human, after all; they can’t expect him to be able to keep up with a team of aliens and supersoldiers for as long as he has been. The sheer amount of Doombots swarming around today (there’s more than usual today, he’s noted with some amount of worry) is exhausting even to the more superpowered of the bunch. As he pulls out another handful of bows from the holster lying by his feet, he says into the comm, “does anyone know how many there are right now? In the field?”
The first to answer is Tony. “JARVIS is telling me that there are exactly 294 active right now,” he reports, breathing hard. Clint takes a moment to watch Iron Man take down a Doombot that lands so hard, it dents the pavement and leaves long cracks five meters up the street. “293.”
In the corner of his peripheral vision, Sam is climbing to his feet again, metal wings unsheathing from his back. He presses a button on his wristwatch and a holographic screen projects from its interface, displaying numerous buttons and dials that Clint can never hope to understand - he’s never had any use for a lot of Stark’s more advanced technology, not when he’s perfectly capable with nothing save for a bow and arrow. He turns a dial on the screen and some of the metal plates on the end of his wings contract into their inner structure, shortening their wingspan. Catching Clint’s eyes, Sam beams him with his best shit-eating grin and tells him, “shorter wingspan faster turns. Time to take these motherfuckers out .”
Another arrow hits the temple of a Doombot and it blows it’s head off before it can even raise its gun. “Go do that,” he murmurs distractedly.
“I have an idea!” Thor declares loudly, driving his hammer through the body of a Doombot so hard that the following explosion resounds even through the comms. “Why don’t we use that device with the electromagnetic pulses? An EMP, as I recall you saying? It should be effective in taking down all of the Doombots at once, no?”
“An EMP would kill Tony,” Natasha answers dismissively. Momentarily distracted by the conversation happening in his ear, Clint watches the Russian spy disable a Doombot with nothing but a single foot and a baton. “Remember what happened last time we used an EMP? Do you want to repeat that again?”
“I don’t,” Tony says.
Clint remembers it as if it happened yesterday. They’d been dealing with a swarm of giant robot bees (seriously, why are they always robots?) that were being manifested and released into the streets from the sewer system. With their large numbers and erratic tactics in battle, even the Hulk found himself struggling and overwhelmed while working to subdue the worst of them. The amount of collateral damage being dealt to the streets and to the citizens that lingered were causing too much trouble for them to handle all at once - trying to clear people out of the danger zone while battling with the danger in it isn’t an easy feat, even for the Avengers.
In the middle of the stress, Steve only saw one way to get the job done quicker; turning on the EMP. It could have turned out okay if he’d communicated this idea through the comms first but he didn’t mention it until they’d started to notice that the bees were dropping - and, with them, Tony.
The Iron Man suit had hit the ground hard, but no one had been worried about any broken bones (of which he had none, thanks to the suit’s effective impact protection). No - everyone had only started to get concerned when they realized that the glowing blue disc in the billionaire’s chest wasn’t glowing any longer.
Bruce had been able to reactivate the arc reactor with JARVIS’ help before Tony succumbed to the shrapnel in his chest, though, so it turned out to be a successful plan in the long run; just another near-death experience to add to the list, Tony had joked five minutes after waking up in medical that very same day.
“Oh, I forgot about that until now ,” Thor murmurs, his downcast voice merely whisper against the angry roar of a Doombot.
Sounding guilty, Steve hums. “Let’s not consider the EMP again,” he suggests.
“Agreed,” Sam says, sucking in a breath. He isn’t panting anymore but that same exhausted expression remains burned into his face, ragged and tired. Seeing it almost makes Clint feel guilty; he’s not exerting himself nearly as much as his teammates are while hanging on this rooftop, firing arrows and joking around. “Thanks for letting me hang on your rooftop, Legolas.”
“Bye, sweetcheeks.”
Sam throws a crushed can at the back of Clint's head but there's that fond affection in his eyes that lets the sharpshooter know it's out of pure, good humour. He pushes into the air, jetpack screaming with the effort, wings tilting as he tilts himself towards the ground with the grace and fire of a real falcon. Then, only moments later, his voice appears again in the comm. “Uh- Stark, it isn’t time to go home yet.”
Clint doesn’t look away from the cluster of bots he’s targeted but he can see the Iron Man suit in the very corner of his peripheral vision, the repulsors on his feet burning molten hot. Something in his stomach twists - it’s not like Tony to retreat back to the Tower during a battle, especially not one against something as customary as a swarm of Doombots. Somewhat unsettled, Clint says, "Tony?"
“There he goes again. Probably doing something stupid,” Steve grumbles, no trace of humour in his voice. “Tony, where are you going? What are you doing now? Come back, we have to--"
“--there’s a bunch of DoomBots heading for the Tower!”
He’s never stood up so fast.
.
“It’s so empty,” Peter says to nobody.
The white expanse of the infirmary room’s ceiling offers no response and he just sighs, letting his eyes fall shut. The Tower has never felt as empty as it does now ever since Peter first woke up in the very bed he’s lying in at that moment; without Clint, Sam and the rest of the Avengers hovering over him at every second of the day with their warm smiles and domestic shenanigans, the sheer size of the Tower suddenly makes him feel so much smaller and so much more alone. Even the infirmary feels a little bigger than what he’s comfortable with.
Bruce had left him to his own wits in favour of completing some unfinished work in his laboratory (he’d been very reluctant to leave him by himself, but Peter didn’t want to be any more of a burden to the doctor than he already is) and the bots are restricted to Tony’s floor when the billionaire isn’t around to keep them in line, so for the better portion of the afternoon Peter is left with nothing but himself, the ceiling, and…
He glances to his left, where his webshooters lay on the bedside table.
There’s no real reason why he made them. Not one that doesn’t make him look insane, anyway. After all, Spiderman isn’t really a part of him anymore. The webshooters don’t belong to Peter Parker - because Peter Parker likes Legos and science and Star Wars, and Spiderman likes helping old ladies across the street and retrieving stolen bikes and pretending he’s making a big impact on the streets of New York. And Spiderman went missing a year and a bit ago. Spiderman went missing when the suit was burned.
When Tony Stark had left Peter in his workshop, he’d had no intention of making the webshooters. There’s no reason why he should. There’s no way he’ll ever use them anytime soon.
But everything he needed to make them had been right there (nickel-plated annealed brass, silver, copper, welding torches…) and it’s almost as if he went on autopilot - as if Spiderman took the wheel and locked Peter in the trunk. Apart from some strips of light leather for the wrist strap and the webbing solution itself, the webshooters are better than ever and can even hold 2x more cartridges than before.
For only a moment, something inside of him wonders whether Dr. Banner would have what he needs for webbing solution.
He considers breaking them again - to keep the thought of what isn’t a part of him any more out of his mind, far from his reach - but then his mind replays that memory--
--”Aunt May, what’re you doing? Let me-- me o-out!”
He stares at what’s left of them, shattered like glass shards on the counter.
“Dude,” he whispers, looking away from the webshooters.
The silence is a deafening thunder in his ears. Stiff from lying awkwardly for an elongated period of time, Peter sits on the edge of the bed and cracks his back. He wants to do something, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do, or what there is to do in the first place. Tony’s workshop is a far walk from the sixteenth floor. The communal floor doesn’t feel right without everyone else there to make it so. He’s living in the place he’s always dreamed about living in - with the people he’s always dreamed about meeting - and yet it just doesn’t feel right .
He picks up the webshooters, entertaining restless fingers with the comfort of their customary weight. They feel natural in his hold - so much so that Peter feels almost disgusted by how familiar it all seems. He recalls the day he’s first made them like it happened yesterday; how excited he’d been to finally add onto his ridiculous spider gimmick; how satisfying it felt when he shot a strand onto his ceiling and swung from his desk to his bed (he’d smacked into his bedroom wall the very first time, but no one needs to know that); how proud he was of himself for managing to pull off what he thought could only be an idea.
Absently, he lets the pad of each finger stick to the spring steels; lets himself identify the spinneret nozzles and the solenoid needle caves and the hinge points simply by touch. That same excitement isn’t there anymore. The number of times he’s had to put together and rebuild the webshooters during his time as Spiderman chased it off long ago.
He tucks the webshooters safely behind a box under the infirmary bed and stands up, cracking his back again. This time it makes a satisfying pop and he grins, momentarily taken back to the times when he’d randomly crack his bones (he’s one of those people and he’s proud of it) and Aunt May would cringe and try to tell him that he’ll end up with terrible arthritis at twenty if he did it anymore.
(“You’re disgusting, Peter,” she says, reaching over to ruffle his hair.
Looking at her from over his glass, he grins and says, “maybe, but you love it.”
“You’re right. I do.”)
Twenty minutes and too much aimless wandering later sees Peter sprawled out on Clint’s favourite beanbag in the communal living room, a share bag of hot twisted Cheetos lying in his lap (they’re labelled ‘SAM’S CHEETOS’ but it doesn’t say anywhere on the packet that Peter can’t eat them, so he took the liberty to do so upon himself), flicking through the television channels. Peter hasn’t had so much control over a television in so long that he’s forgotten whether he likes half of the programs available or not.
“JARVIS,” he murmurs around a particularly large Cheeto, “do you have Star Wars?”
“Of course. Which movie would you like to watch?”
He doesn’t so much as hesitate - he’s very well versed as to what his favourite Star Wars movie is. “ The Force Awakens , please. Thank you, JARVIS,” he says as he dips his hand into the bag of Cheetos again. Having the AI around is certainly one of his favourite parts about his temporary living situation.
“It is no problem, Peter.” JARVIS promptly brings up the movie onto the extensive television screen, but doesn’t play it immediately. “Before I unpause the movie, Dr. Banner would like to know how you are doing. He would also like you to know that you are welcome to come to his laboratory if you would wish to do so.”
At that, Peter can’t suppress a smile. It’s comforting, being reminded of Bruce’s presence, even if they’re not in the same room. Even just being aware of him makes him feel that little less lonely and small in the expansive space of the Tower. “Tell him that I’m alright and perfectly comfortable watching Star Wars in the living room,” he says around a mouthful. He pauses to lick the hot, orange Cheeto dust off his fingers. “And tell him that I’ll take him up on that offer when the movie is over. I haven’t watched TV by myself in ages.”
“I have relayed the message. Would you like me to unpause your movie now?”
“Yeah. Thanks, JARVIS.”
“You are certainly welcome.”
He grins as the AI obediently unpauses the movie, shifting in the beanbag so that he’s closer to lying it in it rather than sitting upright. The beanbag has definitely seen better days; the battered purple and black design are worn thin in places and yet it isn't close to the point of ripping. It's stuffing, victim to Clint's ass over the years, is flat to the stage where it's comfortable no matter how awkwardly he sits in it.
(It reminds him of the sofa at May's house. He briefly wonders whether she's managed to get the spaghetti stains out of it from that one time, or if she's replaced it with that expensive one she's always thought would good look with the colour of their walls from the shop down the street yet. Or maybe she re-painted the walls...)
Two fingers pinch at the space between his eyes and he sighs, willing himself to just focus on the movie. It's like every moment of contentment gets beaten down by memories of her . Can he not just enjoy The Force Awakens in peace?
.
"Bruce! Bruce! Answer me, dammit!"
The comm is lying half a room away and yet Bruce can hear Tony's voice, loud and clear as if the guy himself were right in front of him. He frowns, hurriedly rolling his swivel chair over to it and fitting it into his ear. "Hey- hey. I'm here. Are you okay, Tones? Is someone hurt? Do you need the Other Guy?"
Tony must be flying fast, because Bruce can hear the whine of his boot repulsors over the sound of his frantic, heavy breathing. "I- the Doombots are heading for the Tower, Bruce. They're too fast for me to catch up and the others are busy handling the stragglers who- who are trying to kill ci- get over here , Doombitches-"
Already standing from his chair, Bruce makes a beeline for the elevator. JARVIS quickly moves him down a couple of floors with no prompting. "Tony- Tony! Chill. Chill, yeah? I'm heading to Peter right now, okay?"
"Doombots are easy to take but there's no way that Peter--"
"Tony!" he snaps, and the billionaire's breath hitches in his throat. "Focus on getting rid of as many as you can before they reach the Tower--"
"Shit! They're--"
Tony is shouting, but it’s a dim whisper over the sound of the windows smashing on the floor beneath him.
.
Apparently, peace is too much to ask for.
He’s hardly an hour into the movie when his spider-sense rings painfully in the back of his head and the wall of windows cave inwards, sending sharp shards of glass through the air so fast that Peter barely manages to dodge them before they’re cutting into the skin of his forearms. They don’t hurt, what with pure adrenaline fighting off the tiny pulses of pain before he registers it, but he worries that the wounds will heal over the pieces of glass stuck in his body and that’s going to have to be something he has to deal with forever if he’s going to keep his identity anymore. Droplets of blood leave thin red trails on the pale of his skin.
Peter’s body hits the ground hard as he vaults over the back of the sofa and he just groans, rubbing at his eyes with the ball of his palms. It takes him a moment to gather the energy to sit up against it, already feeling tired of whatever has come to shit on his day. It’s just his luck, isn’t it? Just good old Parker luck, coming back to bite him in the ass after waiting so long in the shadows. Good old Parker luck.
The footsteps that resound throughout the room are heavy and metal, but Peter doesn’t think that they’re Iron Man’s. There are at least eight pairs of feet, their steps slow and dangerous, like predators stalking their prey. The ominous quiet of the room sends cold anxiety running through his veins.
It's almost concerning, really, that Peter's first coherent thought is 'will I ever get to finish my movie?'
“JARVIS?” he whispers.
“Dr. Banner and Sir are on their way, Peter. Please remain hidden from sight until it is safe enough for you to get out of harm’s way,” the AI says, British intone frightfully calm.
The superhero in him itches for the webshooters under the infirmary bed but he just shakes his head, trying to steady his breathing. No matter how much he wants to spring up and attempt to take whatever just infiltrated the Tower down, he’s not going to move. He’s going to stay behind this sofa and wait for Bruce and Tony to get here, because he is Peter Parker - and Peter Parker definitely does not jump into battles with supervillains. Peter Parker watches Star Wars and plays with Legos and stays away from the danger.
But then his spider-sense screams and there's a shadow looming over him.
It's an ugly thing - all grey and green metal, two slanted slits in the outer armour of the face glaring and red. Its arm is pointed directly at his head and it takes Peter a moment to notice that there's a gun built into its structure, the end whining and glowing a daunting shade of white.
On reflex he jumps onto the wall and the gun fires, burning a spot right into the floor where he'd been sat only moments before. His spider-sense is a constant presence drumming in the back of his head - screamingscreamingscreaming for him to get the fuck out of the Tower, to get himself somewhere where the stupid robot and the stupid gun can't reach him--
"What the fuck," Peter hisses through his teeth, crawling away from the bot as it unloads shots into the wall behind him. "What the fuck . What the fuck ."
Without the webshooters, he has no way of defending himself. They’re his most effective weapon and defence all at once. He doesn’t even want to engage these ugly things in battle - he just doesn’t want to die face-to-face with the white of their guns, y’know?
From where he is on the wall he can finally see just what he's dealing with at its proper scale; there has to be maybe ten identical bots in the room, all aiming their guns in his direction, red slits watching him with some sort of blood-lusting intensity. He can hear a few out in the corridor on the other side of the wall and there's a couple more flying (of course they fucking fly - Parker luck comes into play as per usual) towards where the window is broken in.
The guns fire and he takes to the ceiling. Thankfully, their shooting skills aren't exactly up to par - they seem to have to calculate their shot before they take it, meaning that they're essentially only effective against targets that don't move. The pause between each shot gives Peter a good chance of getting out of the way before it lands. He doesn't dare to try and initiate contact; he has no idea what those dumb robots could do and how to take them down without his webshooters.
A blast of white brushes too close to comfort but he doesn't register it, moving too fast to feel anything except the heat it radiates when it marks the ceiling. Their inability to aim seems to only anger them more, if their frustrated roars and their growing rate of fire is anything to judge by.
"J-JARVIS," he murmurs, "where are- uh-?"
"Dr. Banner is approaching by the door to your left. Sir is currently occupied with some of the Doombots outside of the Tower."
Despite the situation, Peter can't swallow his giggle. "Doombot?" he repeats, dropping to the floor and vaulting over the cocktail bar as shots burn into the ceiling where he'd been only a few seconds beforehand (he can't have Bruce seeing him crawling on the walls, not even if it means he has a better chance surviving this bullshit). "That sounds-"
"Peter! Peter, where- oh shit -"
Bruce usually has that calm, patient vibe surrounding him, so the raw panic in his voice is something terrifying in itself. Peter picks up a glass from the shelving in the cocktail bar and throws it over his head, hoping it serves to alert the doctor of his presence. "The cocktail bar, Bruce!" he shouts, voice shaking as he feels the heat of a passing shot that digs a steaming, charred dent into the wall nearest to him. His spider-sense is blaring again, painful like a migraine, and he grits his teeth. "Br-"
"I'm here, Pete!" comes the doctor's voice as he skids to the floor next to him, panting harshly, his head hitting the bar. There's a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his eyes are wild with worry as they look Peter up and down. His hands shake when they reach up to take hold of his forearms, to which Peter doesn't shy away from. For only a moment, his spider-sense is calm. "Are- are you okay? Are you hurt, Peter?"
"I'm fine. Really, I'm alright. I managed to get over here before they got anywhere near shooting me." He grins despite himself, breath shaking. "They're not the best shot in the world, are they?"
"They're not exactly intelligent machines." Bruce slowly rubs at the salt-and-pepper curls on the back of his head. "I'm pretty sure they've forgotten that we're here already."
Indeed, the shots fired in their general direction have stopped in their entirety - as long as they stay here together, Peter is sure he's safe enough to get through this. His spider-sense is now nothing but a low rumble in the back of his head, not so much as twitching as the bots move around on the other side of the cocktail bar. He lets out a long sigh and rubs two thumbs into the corner of tired eyes. "JARVIS said they're called Doombots."
"We deal with them a lot," Bruce says, "which is why they didn't call me out to deal with them. The Hulk causes more damage than the Doombots do, most of the time." Something in his face changes and he looks away from Peter, back to where the shot had burned the wall a few minutes beforehand. "Did that nearly hit you? Are you sure you're fine, Pete?"
"Bruce."
The doctor looks him in the eyes wearily. "You're so calm for someone who's never done this before."
Ah, if only Bruce knows how wrong he is - while he's never dealt with these Doombot fuckers before, he's certainly has been in similar situations against similar villains. Perhaps his experience is nothing compared to the Avengers but it's a good amount of experience nonetheless. Peter wants to laugh but he restrains himself, instead opting to respond with nothing more than a shrug and a smile.
Bruce looks at him for a beat longer before his hand goes up to his ear. "Tony, I'm sitting next to Peter behind your cocktail bar on the communal floor," he says into what can only be a comm. The teenager can hear a voice responding to him, but it's too tinny and far away to make out what it’s actually saying. "Yeah. There are maybe nine or ten in here with us. They're not shooting at us anymore.”
“Anymore?” he thinks he hears Tony shout.
“They were shooting at Peter but he’s okay- Tony .” Bruce looks weary, but he’s still smiling. “Tony, listen. He’s fine. None of them landed a shot on him. He’s right here next to me. You want to talk to him?”
Hardly a second passes before Bruce is unhooking his comm and offering it to Peter. He takes it hesitantly and puts it to his ear. The sound Iron Man’s repulsors charging and firing assaults his ear almost immediately. “Hi, Tony. It’s- uh, it’s Peter.”
“Are you okay, Peter?”
“Bruce already told you I was fine. I was eating Sam’s Cheetos and watching Star Wars when they came in, and I got behind the cocktail bar before they could shoot me.” He breathes out a chuckle. “They’ve got a shitty shot, let me tell you that.”
Tony laughs, long and loud. “That they do. I’ll clear them out in a second. I’m just dealing with some that got loose in the lower floors and then I’ll be right up, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you back to Bruce now.”
“Don’t bother. See you in a second, Pete.”
The rumble of the repulsors shuts off like a switch and Peter hands the comm back to Bruce, who hooks it back into his ear. “We’re lucky that they’re not built to listen to audio,” the doctor says, the epitome of indifference despite the situation at hand. “Otherwise we’d be piles of ashes right now.”
“I thought you’d have let the Hulk beat them to smithereens by now, you know.”
“As I said, he causes more damage than he prevents. It’s easier to let the others take care of this and,” he smiles, reaching forward to ruffle his hair and suddenly its May that’s sitting in front of him in Bruce’s place, “for me to take care of you .”
He swallows. Blinks May away. “That’s corny.”
“Yeah? Well, so am I.”
It’s then that the Doombots behind them scuffle and suddenly there’s a whining repulsor. “Fuck, there’s so many of them in here. How did not one of them land a shot on you, Pete?” Tony’s voice bites out, over the sound of metal bodies falling.
Peter doesn’t look around the cocktail bar but he knows that Tony is clearing them out fast; he can tell that much just by the rate at which he can hear the repulsors fire and the metal collapsing. He figures that, once you get to know their weak spots and their own strategy in battle, they’re probably not difficult to beat at all. If he’d been more prepared and had his webshooters with him, he could have probably managed the Doombot swarm by himself.
It’s another minute or so before Tony finally stops firing and Peter scrambles onto his knees to peer over the top of the cocktail bar. With his faceplate up and exposing a face shiny with sweat, Iron Man stands in the midst of motionless metal bodies, their heads separated violently. He looks ragged and tired. “That was the last of them, hopefully,” he says, shooting both Peter and Bruce a worn smile. “Let’s just pray that the others are capable of getting rid of the rest of them downtown, huh?”
“That was eventful,” Bruce comments.
“You think so?”
The billionaire casts another look at the mess of robots in front of him before his eyes flit up to look at Peter, running up and down his body as if confirming his presence. “You’re sure you’re alright? No secret wounds you’re not telling me about? Because I don’t think my poor old heart can take much more panic today, Pete.”
Peter looks down at where the glass had cut his arm and isn’t surprised to see that the slices have healed already, leaving nothing but faded trails of blood that stain the pale skin of his forearm. He tries to rub the marks off on his shirt as to not arise suspicion. “I’m fine,” he says, “I promise I’m okay, Tony. Just a little bit peeved that I couldn’t finish my Star Wars movie and Cheetos, to be honest.”
(Which isn’t a lie in its entirety.)
“You’re really not shaken up or anything?” Bruce says, side-eyeing him. “I know too many people who would be crying in the corner after nearly getting killed by some robots. And they’re all older than you.”
“Clint,” Tony remarks. The doctor snickers.
There’s really no other way he can justify his behaviour at this point: “I grew up in New York. What’s there to be worried about?”