Too fucking late.
Too fucking late.
Tony crashes through the ceiling, cracking the already existing hole. He lands on the ground with a hard thump. Students scatter away from an unrecognizable red lump on the ground.
Too fucking late, again.
His mind screams at him that he’s too fucking late, Tony. You’re too fucking late. He screams aloud, but he’s not quite sure it’s loud enough.
The students begin to mummer, look around expectantly waiting for something else to hurtle into their school. Tony shakes and lumbers forwards, the sound of his suit echoing loudly in the open hall.
How many times had Pepper told him he couldn’t save everyone? How many times had she consoled him during his insane breakdowns due to guilt?
But Peter, isn’t everyone. He’s just a goddamn kid.
A kid, oh god, another kid.
Tony stands over who he knows to be Peter, his strength wavering. More suits come crashing through the ceiling.
It's been three minutes since FRIDAY gave him the notification of Peter's dwindling health; FRIDAY failed to mention the extent of Peter's injuries. The kid looks dead. FRIDAY proceeds to inform him in a timid voice that Peter's heart isn't pumping blood.
There goes his strength.
Tony falls to his knees over Peter’s body.
He screams again.
He barks out a strangled order to FRIDAY to start CPR, call an ambulance, call the president, call Thor, call God, call anyone who has any power to help.
He gets a wild idea that maybe he’s not too late, that maybe Peter will come back to life, all boyish energy and sickening puppy-like smiles.
Tony can’t stand to look at Peter’s grey complexion, riddled with cuts and dark blood. He can’t stand to venture one more glance at Peter’s unseeing eyes, downturned lips, and lifeless body.
FRIDAY summons Tony’s suit off of him and begins CPR.
Tony watches, tries to remember how this happened. How Peter ended up dead in the middle the homecoming dance at his school. How Tony is left broken over his body.
The fucking Vulture killed him, Tony is sure. A Tony-created demon. Over some dispute eight fucking years ago after the Chitauri in New York. It’s ridiculous, the length of time people will wait to come after him. It’s ridiculous, the amount of pain they hit Tony back with.
And this, this, is the hardest Tony has ever been hit. Not when Pepper was captured by the Mandarin and Tony watched her fall (though until now, that was it). Not when Cap turned against him to save Bucky even after he knew that monster killed his parents. Not when Tony dropped a building on Charlie Spencer and dealt with the deaths of hundreds, thousands.
Because Peter is different to Tony. Peter . . . Peter is his son.
Tony collapses, hitting his forehead on cool linoleum.
Biologically, Peter Parker is no more Tony Stark’s son than Ghandi himself, but in Tony’s heart, Peter is everything good for him. He’d felt like this once before with Harley in Tennessee, but Harley was good without Tony: smart and adjustable. Tony had parted with the kid before his poison seeped into his life.
Peter is different. Too eager for his own good. Too ambitious to be healthy. Too intelligent for mundane life. Peter was creating his own demons without Tony, and so, Tony didn’t feel so bad stepping into the kid’s life and recruiting him for Avengers.
He’d never expected this feeling. This all-consuming need to look out for the kid, to check up on him daily, to make sure his inventions were coming along, to make adjustments to the Underoos. To care.
But it’s over now. Tony’s too late to fix his feelings. He’s too late to fix Peter. He’s always too goddamn late.
Kids are staring at him, not that Tony cares. They couldn’t get past his protective shield anyway. He’s sure many of them have had the sense to flee before an alien comes crashing through the ceiling, but too many remain, and Tony wants them gone.
He wants them gone.
Anger, anger now. He’s fucking pissed. These children don’t deserve to die, but Tony can’t help but feel impossible anger towards all of them. How can they live, when Peter is dead?
Fuck them. Get them out. Get them away.
“What? What!?” he screams at them. He lifts his head and pulls his torso so he’s kneeling. Scared eyes meet his furious ones. “Get out! Get out of here! He’s dead, do you see that? Or are all of you too stupid? GET OUT!” Tony roars.
His suits seem to take this as a command and begin widening his protective shield, forcing kids out of the way. They run.
Good. Better they save themselves away from him.
FRIDAY is still continuing CPR, but it’s not enough, and Tony knows this.
“Shock him,” he mumbles, staring numbly.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“I said shock the kid,” he says again.
“That has a 96% chance of –”
“I know the stats, do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
FRIDAY begins procedure, and all Tony can think about is the 4% chance of this working.
He needs it to work.
FRIDAY delivers the first shock, and Tony swears he can feel it reverberate through his bones.
Peter doesn’t move.
“Again!” growls Tony.
FRIDAY shocks Peter again.
Nothing happens, and Tony wants to puke.
His tech exists to save because Tony can’t. His suits are meant to protect and save those deserving. Peter is everything that deserves saving, and if his tech fails so does Tony.
“Turn it up and do it again.”
“Sir, that has a 98% chance of failure and causing more injury.”
“It’s a two percent chance that he’ll live, FRIDAY. Do it.”
FRIDAY delivers the shock.
Five seconds pass, and then Peter is breathing again.
“Hospital,” chokes out Tony.
FRIDAY locks a suit around Peter and he’s gone.
Tony needs Pepper, and he needs her now, but he can’t move out of shock. He can’t believe it worked. He can’t believe that Peter is alive. He can’t believe that he was right on time.
Police gather around him and journalists follow closely behind.
Tony can’t move.
. . . . . . . . .
Eventually, Pepper comes to him and soothes his hardened joints. She shoos the press away and kneels next to him and showers him with kisses. She talks to him, but Tony doesn’t hear what she says, just feels so glad that she’s here with him.
She wipes away a steady stream of tears that pour from him and holds his weight when he finally collapses from relief.
He mumbles incoherently about being too late, and Pepper firmly tells him that he’s okay. That Peter is okay.
A few hours pass and ultimately Tony falls asleep because he still can’t bear to leave the school. He still feels locked in place to where Peter was.
The next day Tony wakes up in a warm bed and a new sense of urgency to be with Peter, but everything is alright, and Tony will keep it that way for as long as humanly possible; which, as he knows, won't be very long at all knowing his luck.