I have the first 5 stories written already, so I'll try to post them fairly quickly.
Warning: cuts, needles, low-key medical stuff if things like that bother you, like they do me. I had two of my kids with no pain relief, and I can handle it. You want to take my blood? I'm going to need to lie down for that…" Also though, I've never had a knife wound stitched up, so I probably missed details.
Knives Over Needles
"Boss, you have an alert from Karen."
"What?"
"Peter's AI. He has been injured."
"Oh, Karen, right!" It was almost 11 PM on a Saturday night. Tony had just been putting the finishing touches on a new prototype he was supposed to present Tuesday. It had been a fairly jam-packed couple of weeks in general, starting with a kind-of-accidental-but-not-really engagement to Pepper when the Spider-kid had bailed on his invitation to join the Avengers, canceling the sale on the Tower and dealing with the aftermath of the crash, punctuated with a few long conversations with the kid's unusually hot and unusually angry aunt, and culminating with this project. Which was almost done, but it was kind of hard to concentrate on anything at this point. He really should sleep at some point.
"Boss?
Oh, right, the kid! It was hard to come up out of being focused on his project. "What's wrong with him, FRI? And where is he?"
"Knife laceration, approximately 5 inches long in the lower right thigh. Stitches recommended. Mr. Parker is approximately a quarter mile northeast of here."
"What's he doing now?"
"He appears to be stationary"
"Call him FRI."
"Connecting."
It rang four times before Peter finally picked up. "Uh, hey Mr. Stark." He seemed to be going for nonchalant.
"Hey, kid. FRIDAY says you're injured?"
"Oh, oh, right. Uh, yeah, I guess so. It's not a big deal, sir, I was just about to head home."
"Karen said it needs stitches. You gonna do those yourself?"
"Um…"
"Can you get to the Tower on your own steam, or do you need a lift?"
"I don't think it's that bad, sir."
"Do you remember the long, very loud conversation your aunt had with me just two weeks ago? The one where she was cursing at me in Italian? You want to keep doing this, both of us have to stick to her terms."
A long-suffering sigh. "Right. Um, I can get there, I guess."
"Let me know if you have any trouble and need that ride after all. Medbay is on floor 83. There's no staff tonight, but I can fix you up. Meet you there in 10. Have FRIDAY direct Karen if you can't find it. End call."
Tony wasn't sure what it was about the kid that had him willing to jump through all of May Parker's hoops, but he had agreed to each one. Tony knew the boy wasn't going to stop his arachnid-flavored super-heroing, no matter what any adult said, and he knew the safest way for him to do that was in Tony's tech and with someone keeping an eye on him. And for some reason, he didn't feel like passing him off onto anyone else, even if Tony wasn't exactly mentor material.
His aunt-mandated internship hours were due to start Wednesday. Tony wasn't sure what they were going to do, but he knew the kid was pretty smart, between his impressive webs and his records at Midtown Tech. Surely there was something they could work on together.
The kid had finally been out in his suit again the last few nights, and his ending reports came straight to Tony now, not through Happy. And Tony had promised to listen to them, so he could catch anything that might be an issue. You know, like an angry alien-tech-powered dads who were cool dropping buildings on teenagers. That had come out during the "meeting" with his aunt, and both the adults were terrified at what could have happened. She had made Peter promise to follow Tony's lead, so as not get in over his head again. That was the idea anyway.
But Tony hadn't actually seen the kid since that last meeting over ten days ago. And he had found himself actually thinking about the kid often in the absence. Even his reports, which used to be cheerful and long-winded, were shorter, more to the point now. And Tony found he missed the rambling nature that he and Happy had both complained about before.
Tony scanned into Medbay and was assembling the supplies he'd need when he heard FRIDAY unlatch the window, and the teen in question landed inside the room with a hiss. It sounded like his leg was hurting more than he had let on. It definitely looked rough, but the cut looked pretty straight forward.
Tony's raised his eyebrows in sympathy. "Hey, kid. How does the other guy look?"
"Hey, Mr. Stark. Not a mark, unfortunately. But the police should have them by now."
"What happened? Did you get sloppy? I thought your spidey-sense helped you avoid stuff like that." He gestured to the bathroom. "I put some clothes in there for you so you can get out of the suit and so we can get to the cut."
Peter limped towards the bathroom and said, "I'm not sure. I feel like it was almost a freak accident. I was dodging one guy and somehow moved my leg right where the other guy was moving his knife. He was aiming at the first guy. It was all kinda a mess."
Tony was not looking forward to this. He had stitched other people (and even himself) several times, and felt confident in his abilities, but the thought of having to do it on a kid was daunting. Especially this kid, with his big brown, (usually) trusting eyes. Should he call someone in?
He decided against it. By the time they got here, the kid's leg might already be healing, and maybe it would make it harder. He knew he had enhanced healing, but he had no idea about the extent. He just knew how rough the super-kid had looked on the camera feed after the plane crash, but by the time he saw him several days later at the Compound, he was well on his way to healed.
Peter came out of the bathroom, holding the balled-up spider suit and wearing a Stark Industries t-shirt and some athletic shorts. Tony had raided his own workout clothes drawer for those, since he didn't feel like going up to either of the gyms and searching for something. They were big, but the shorts had a drawstring.
"Sorry about the suit, Mr. Stark," Peter said humbly, offering it to him.
"It's okay, kid. I'm more worried about your leg." He really didn't like being handed things though. "Uh, you can toss it in the basket there, and we'll get it cleaned, then you can help me repair it Wednesday when you come."
"I get to help?" The kids eyes were wide with wonder, or shock, or some other over-the-top adolescent emotion. Then his brow dropped. "Wait, not until Wednesday? What about patrolling until then?"
"Natural consequences of letting that knife get you, kid." Before he schooled his expression, the teen legitimately pouted. Tony kept forgetting how young he was until he spent time around him. Brave, self-sacrificing, strong-as-all-get-out, but still barely out of childhood. It was adorable kind of cute and sobering at the same time.
"Okay, Evil Knievel, hop up here," he said, patting the exam table. "Are you gonna sit up and watch, or lay back?"
"I can watch. I've done it myself before. I coulda handled it." Tony winced.
"Yeah, well, Aunt Hottie says that's on the No-Fly list."
Tony got ready to administer the local anesthetic, and the kid stiffened.
"What's that?"
"Lidocaine? You don't want to feel me stitching you up, do you?"
"Um, I don't really like needles. Like needles putting stuff in and out of my body needles…" Tony was nonplussed. This was the kid who regularly threw himself into situations where great bodily harm was possible, and a needle was a problem for him?
"Well, what did you use to numb it up when you stitched yourself?"
"I didn't have anything. I just tried to be really fast…"
This idiot kid. "Well, I'm not stitching up a 5-inch gash on a child with no pain relief. Not happening. Maybe you should lay down and not watch."
Peter gritted his teeth and looked like he wanted to argue more, but he obediently spun around so he could lay back on the table.
Tony set a hand gently on his leg near where he was going to do the first micro-injection, and the kid jumped. "You want to try to relax this leg, bud, or it's going to hurt more."
To his credit, Peter did manage to stay still during the injections and the stitches, and just pulled his phone out to look at something as an attempt at distraction.
"That actually does feel better, Mr. Stark. Thanks. Still gross, the feeling of it, but less pain."
"Ya think?" Tony was about halfway done. But by the time he got to the last couple stitches, the kid wasn't so relaxed, and he was squirming a bit on the table.
"Are you feeling that, kid? I was sure I went all the way around, and it should be numb for 30 minutes at least…" he fumbled for the lidocaine again, but Peter reached out and stopped his hand.
"Maybe just finish fast? I'm guessing my metabolism burned through it. Regular drugs don't seem to work for me anymore. Or if they do, they just last for a little bit instead of hours."
"Well, that's useful information. Why haven't you mentioned that?"
"We haven't really… talked a lot, sir."
"No more of this 'sir' stuff, kid. Makes me feel older than I am. We really need to get you into Medbay and get some baselines and figure out what's up with your super-metabolism. What if you needed surgery or some pain meds, and we didn't know what to do?"
"I hadn't really thought about it, s-" The kid shut his mouth before another "sir" could pop out.
One more pass of the needle (though Tony swore he felt his heart stutter when a slight whimper escaped from the kid under his hands) and he was able to tie it off.
He swabbed it one more time with disinfectant, which prompted another surprised hiss, and did his best to bandage up. "Okay, kid. All done."
Peter sat up gingerly. "Thanks Mr. Stark."
"No problem, kid. This was better, right? Better to get help, instead of trying to take care of it yourself, or just hope it heals overnight?"
"Yeah, it was better. Except the shots." Tony saw the side-eye accompanying the last remark, and snapped at the kid with the towel he was about to use to wipe down the table.
"Little punk." He was pretty sure the boy smiled at that. "By the way, how long before you think that will heal? When do we need to take those stitches out?"
"Mmm, hard to tell. If I eat a lot, it will probably be completely closed by tomorrow afternoon. I'd say stitches out by the next day." He didn't look certain.
"If you eat a lot?"
"Yeah. My metabolism is pretty fast these days. I've noticed I heal faster when I eat more."
Tony frowned at that. How many calories did the boy need now, and how many was he getting? Tony knew Steve Captain Rogers needed 3-4x what the others had needed. And Peter did seem a little on the scrawny side. He cleaned up the gauze and bandage clippings, taking care of the trash and putting the unused supplies away while he considered this additional information.
"Hey Underoos, you're eating enough that you're not hungry, though, right? Your aunt knows?" Tony's tone was forcibly casual.
"Sure." A pause. "I mean, sometimes." The kid picked nervously at his fingernails, not meeting Tony's gaze. "It's just that food's kinda expensive, and maybe I haven't said anything to her specifically about it, because I know I already ate a lot even before the spider bite." He finally looked up at Tony, the cadence of his words increasing. "But I pick buffets lots of times when we go out now, and I can fill up more there. Not too much though, you know, or people stare…"
The kid was babbling now, and Tony was trying to not let the horror creep into his expression. When had the kid said the bite happened? How many months had he not even been getting enough to eat with his enhanced metabolism's needs? He felt sick; he could imagine how his aunt would feel about this.
"Okay, well, that's good information, I guess," he managed to get out calmly. Let's go down to the kitchen. We've got a bunch of leftover lasagna, and I'll make you a plate. Then I'll have Happy drive you home. You can't exactly swing barefoot in my gym clothes."
The boy froze. "These are yours? I…uh, I just figured they were extras in the Medbay, and-"
"Don't worry about it, kid." I don't think we're the same shoe size though. What are you, a 9?"
"Uh, 10 ½ actually."
"Oh, that's not not too far off. You want some of my sneakers? Or Medbay keeps some… what are those called? Flip flops! In stock, I think."
"The flip flops are fine, s-uh, Mr. Stark."
Tony rummaged through a cupboard, pulling out some footwear for the kid. He needed to make a note to have FRIDAY order a few sets of clothes and shoes to keep here for when this undoubtedly happened again. Along with a few other notes.
And if there was a credit card with Peter Parker's name on it when the kid came back to get his stitches out, with strict instructions to spend upwards of $400 per month on extra food - "Eat enough that you don't feel hungry, Parker, or so help me, I will tell your aunt you haven't told her about this" - well, that was just Tony making sure the kid's reflexes and healing were in tip top shape. Fixing the spider suit was time consuming and expensive, so it only made sense to protect his investment. That was the reason.
