Everything was pain.

Breathing was pain. His body was pain. There was nothing besides it. And every time the tremors rocked through him, forcing his muscles to stiffen and then relax again, it was like a new wave of it.

As he started to come around, it was incredibly hard to focus through the pain. Even what didn't hurt, tingled, and every part of his senses felt exaggerated, even more so than normal. He hadn't had a migraine since becoming Spider-Man, and boy, after this, he was determined to never have one again.

It was a relief to open his eyes and find himself actually able to see again. What wasn't a relief was how bright and white everything was, and the sight of the machines surrounding him.

Slowly, achingly, he raised a hand up to shade his eyes from the light. It helped, but not much. It hurt to move too much, so he let his eyes dart around, taking everything in. His leg, the machines, the oxygen mask on his face, Mr. Stark slumped over asleep in the chair beside him-

….wait.

It took some effort for him to turn his head enough to confirm that it was indeed Tony Stark that was sleeping in the hospital chair next to him. Stark was still here? Why? What could he possibly want now? He'd made it pretty clear that they were done with each other the day he'd taken the suit away. So why…

Foggy memories made their way back to him. Tony, in the dark, screaming for Vulture to stop as he was electrocuting him. Something about what he wanted and Tony's suit. The agonizing feeling the cold metal of Tony's suit on his burning, sensitive skin as he freed him. Tony trying to tell him that everything would be okay.

Somehow, he doubted it. Just because Tony was here didn't make it a good thing. Oh, he was going to be in so much trouble when Mr. Stark woke up. The thought made his heart start pounding, and he groaned a little bit. Every thump of his heartbeat send another small spasm of pain through him. Everything hurt. The world faded out of focus for a minute. His heart monitor started beeping.

Almost from a distance, he heard Tony jolt upright in the chair. When he rushed over and saw the hand he held over his eyes, he moved quickly, turning off the lights before returning to his side. "Kid? Can you hear me?"

His voice snapped everything back into focus, including the pain. Peter let out a low groan, lowering his arm slowly. His vision swam in and out of focus, and he had to close his eyes again to steady himself and calm his racing heart before opening them again and actually being able to focus on Tony.

At the sight of the elder hero standing above him, looking concerned, Peter simply closed them again. "What are you doing here?" he whispered. It was all the louder he could manage.

"What am I- seriously?" Peter flinched, his eyes cinching further shut. Tony stopped, steadying himself and checking his volume before continuing in a whisper. "Peter, do you even know what you're saying? Where you are?"

"I think I'm in the hospital," the boy responded without opening his eyes. "And I think you shouldn't be here."

It was an effort to keep the pain and fury pushed down into a box now that he was awake. And talking to him like this! "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't be here," Tony demanded. Still, he kept his voice low, and managed to keep emotion mostly out of his tone, so he was pretty proud of himself.

"I thought you were done with me. You said it yourself," Peter whispered. "The day you took the suit back. You said it wasn't working out." He opened his eyes slowly, looking up at him. "I just wanted to handle the Vulture thing and move on. I didn't mean to drag you into it, Mr. Stark. If you want to leave, you should just…"

"Leave?" He flinched again, and again Tony had to stop and wrangle his emotions and his volume back under control before he could speak again. "Why would I want to leave? And why would I be done with you? Look, you made a mistake, kid - you've made plenty, it seems like, and you've got a lot to answer for. But so have I. And what I said on the roof that day…" He stopped, shaking his head. "I handled it wrong, alright? It was wrong. But I panicked, Peter. I panicked because I was afraid of something like this." He gestured widely at him. "I panicked and I said what I did because I care about you, not because I don't."

Peter had closed his eyes again, and for a moment Tony wondered if he was even awake. He had almost decided that he was asleep and was about to sit back down when Peter spoke. "How did you find me?"

Tony sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. "Vulture called me from your phone. Demanded a ransom, said a lot of things that I'm not going to get into right now." Partially because it was way too intense a conversation to relive already, and partially because while he wanted answers, he wasn't going to start down that road or he'd start pushing for them right now and he knew he didn't need to. They had time. "I tracked it down and brought it to him."

"A ransom." Peter opened his eyes again, raising a hand to rub his face. "That's what you brought him."

"Yeah." Tony looked at him for a moment, surprised. He'd thought he was unconscious. "Did you hear him say that?"

Peter nodded once. "I… yeah. After he… you know. Fried me." They both winced a little. "I heard you say you'd brought him what he wanted, and he said something about your suit… I remember bits and pieces, but it's all foggy."

"I can't imagine why. You lost a lot of blood." The image of him slumped against the pole flashed in his head again, and he shook it away. The kid was here. He was safe. Enough was enough.

They were silent for a moment. Then Peter asked, "Did he get away with it?"

Tony looked away. "Yeah. He did. But it was fight him or save you, kid, and I already told you. You're not dying on my watch." He turned away, unable to face him as he said it. "But… I'm sorry about… everything that happened in there. I took a risk, and it didn't pay off the way I was hoping it would, and you suffered for that."

"It's alright, Mr. Stark. It wasn't your fault." He yawned a little, then groaned. Yawning was painful, inside and out.

Tony turned to look at him again, standing by the foot of his bed. "What you did in going after him wasn't exactly my fault, no, although I probably could have prevented it, had I not been so distracted. But what happened in that warehouse, and the fact that he even had the thought that he could use you against me like that and get away with it? That was my fault." He paused when his phone buzzed, pulling out of his pocket and glancing at it. "Speaking of things being my fault, that's what your aunt believes. I already talked to her."

At the mention of his aunt, Peter tried to sit up a little, but pain made him fall back in the bed. Tony rounded the side, putting a hand over him to keep him down. "Easy, boy. Easy. She's fine. She wasn't thrilled with me, exactly, but she's not mad, either. She knows what happened, and she's just glad you're alive."

Peter nodded, swallowing back against his pain. "Speaking of being alive, though… I have to say, I thought I was a goner. How'd you do it?"

"Flew like a bat out of hell, that's how." Tony sighed. These memories of the past twelve hours would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.

He nodded. "So what's my prognosis looking like? Outside of my life or death, I mean."

Tony shot him a look that said he didn't think the last comment was funny. "It's looking like you're going to have some lasting effects from your stupidity-" and his "-that's what it looks like." He shook his head. "You've been having seizures for hours, and your heart can't decide if it's going to beat properly or not. For a while it looked like you were going to have some nerve damage, but lucky for you, that issue seems to have mostly cleared itself up." He raised an eyebrow at him. "I would love to know how that happened."

"There is a little bit more to me than just the suit, Mr. Stark," Peter mumbled, closing his eyes again and shrinking a little under the intense look.

"Well, that's good to know, at least. For future reference. You know, the next time you decide to be a stubborn teenage ass and not ask for help when you need it and I have to drop everything to come save you again. Oh, by the way, that's not going to happen again for a while. I'm not letting you out of my sight until you're completely healed." Tony turned to him, crossing his arms.

"What?" Peter frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said."

"No, you can't. I'm going home, with May, right? Unless you're moving in…" he trailed off, realizing he actually wouldn't past him to do something similar to that.

"Close, but you got it backwards."

Peter's eyes widened a bit. "What? I can't live with you."

"And whyever not?" Tony countered, raising an eyebrow. He would have to tell the kid that his aunt had already approved of it and that it was already settled eventually, but right now his reaction was too funny.

"Because! I have school, and not to mention there would be Aunt May to contend with, and… I just want to be home." Peter stopped, rubbing his eyes. He knew he was starting to sound like a whiny child, but he felt like one right now, and if he hadn't earned the right to just be petulant and in pain right now…

Tony paused. He hadn't expected the last part. Sometimes he had a hard time understanding people's attachment to certain places and things, but then, look at how he'd reacted to this, and to preparing to leave the old Avengers headquarters. He sighed, passing a hand over his face and settling on the edge of the bed. "Listen, Peter. I'll level with you here. What you did was crazy dangerous and irresponsible. And you scared the shit out of more than just me. I think I've earned the right to keep you under wraps for a while, and your aunt has already agreed." He held up a hand to stop him when Peter opened his mouth to speak. "No. You can't go back to school until we get this sorted out, which will be a few months at least, if not the rest of the year, and May still has to work. She doesn't have the time to be your twenty four hour babysitter. And right now you need one, because you are completely unstable and you're not going to be able to so much as go to the bathroom by yourself until we get these issues sorted out. So yes, you're coming home with me."

Peter just stared at him for a moment. His injured and traumatized brain could hardly process all this at once. "I…" His brows furrowed slightly. He knew Stark was going to be mad, if he found out, which he hadn't been really banking on him doing. But this was a whole new level of controlling, whether he was trying to help or not. "What if I don't want to go with you?"

Tony stared back at him for a moment, careful to keep his expression unreadable. He knew exactly how he was feeling, and what he was thinking - and yes, damned straight he was being a control freak right then, but he really didn't give a shit. "Tough cookies, kid. The adults have made a decision, and you're going to have to deal with it." The thought that Peter genuinely might not want to go with him stung more than he cared to admit, but in the grand scheme of things, he honestly couldn't care less how he felt about it. Someone needed to get a handle on him. May couldn't, not with all the stress she was already under, even if she had known about him being Spider-Man, which he knew she didn't.

Speaking of adults, he suddenly realized he hadn't informed anyone else in the house that he would be bringing Peter back with him. He hadn't informed them of anything recently, come to think of it. He'd been so distracted and worried about the kid and the conversation with May that he hadn't even thought to call Pepper in the aftermath.

Peter was still watching him, and he could see the pain in the kid's eyes, but he knew it wasn't really directed towards him. It was a rough thing to go through, super or not. There would be a transition period for everyone involved, he was sure, but they would get there.

Sighing, he put a hand on Peter's good leg and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Whether you want to believe it or not, kid, I care about you. We all do. That's why we're doing this, why I'm doing this. I want to help you. You need it, whether you want it or not." He stopped when the boy turned away, nodding again and trying to cover a yawn. "Get some rest. I'll still be here when you wake up."

Peter just nodded, his thoughts clearly somewhere else. Tony patted his knee one last time and got up, moving back to the chair and sitting back down. He needed to go make some calls and get some food and check on arrangements, but he was determined that he wasn't leaving until the kid was asleep.

Hard as he tried to resist, as soon as there was nothing to focus on and no conversation to distract him, Peter was unconscious. As soon as Tony was sure he was well and truly out, he got up, slipping out of the room without a sound. He had business to take care of.