Peter stared down at the tweezers with more than a bit of trepidation, humming nervously to himself as he fidgeted with the metal pincers in his hand.
He'd gotten home about an hour ago and had done some more research on what he should do with the literal bullet in his side, and - underneath the vastly overwhelming recommendation to seek professional medical attention - he came up with this:
The tweezers.
He'd already peeled the bandage off his wound, exposing it to the air, and now he just had to take out the cotton he'd stuffed inside it last night so that it wouldn't seal shut prematurely. Probably the brightest stupid idea he could've come up with the night before while still being loopy on blood loss and practically dead on his feet.
But that was besides the point. The point was - tweezers.
Thankfully, there'd been a pair in the med kit, probably for removing splinters, but hey, what was a bullet in you except for an oversized, metal splinter, right?
Wrong.
Peter squeezed his eyes shut and hyped himself up, breathing a few rapid breaths in and out and grasping the tweezers tightly.
He snapped his eyes back open, reached to his side, and pulled out the cotton in one swift motion that forced a pained hiss to escape from between his clenched teeth.
A trail of blood began to sluggishly make its descent from the now reopened wound, and Peter winced at the sight of it, giving himself a little shake.
He could do this. Yeah. He could totally do this!
.
He could not do this.
It'd been five minutes of him just bringing the tweezers to the edge of the wound before backing out of it at the last second, hand either too shaky or courage failing.
He'd actually managed to get it in once but the shock of his nerves flaring bright in pain from the multiple points of contact of the metal inside him had him jolting the tool right back out.
Now, his muscles were practically twitching at the strain of trying to keep still, and his hair was sticking to his forehead with how slick with sweat it was.
He couldn't take any pain medication to dull the sensations, seeing as how he'd need to take at least half the bottle for it to have any effect, and he didn't really feel like experimenting with drugs at the moment.
On top of that, Ned would still be in school for another couple of hours, but Peter needed something to help himself along now.
Peter needed a distraction.
Unwittingly, his gaze strayed over to the crease between the upper bunk of his mattress and the bedframe, where he'd hidden one of his devices - one of his burner phones.
He chewed on his lip, knowing it was a bad idea but also knowing that he'd already made up his mind, and he stood with a grimace and a resigned sigh, hobbling over to the bed and stuffing his arm under the mattress until his fingers brushed against the cool metal of the phone.
He pulled it out and flipped it open automatically, taking a seat just as a little laugh managed to bubble up past his throat at the parallel of the last time he'd called the number.
Here he was, on the floor and bleeding from his side from a bullet wound, clutching a bloodied phone and dialing the wrong number. Well, it was the right number this time around, he guessed, seeing as he was calling it intentionally.
And that's exactly what he did, each beep of a digit being entered sounding like a warning or a reprimand, but he ignored it, his curiosity from earlier coming back with a vengeance and mixing with his now somewhat desperate need for a distraction so he could just get the job done.
And then it rang, and it rang, and it rang, and Peter was just about to give up hope when it clicked with the telltale sound of the other side accepting the call, and he perked up, face pinching when his side twinged yet again. He idly wiped off some of the excess blood with some tissues as he waited with bated breath for any sign or word from the other end.
.
Tony stared down at his phone, perplexed.
Two calls in two days? Yeah, not likely.
Some would say you had to wait for three for it to not be a coincidence, but Tony thought otherwise - at least for this - because, really, what were the odds that his private line - which was blocked from all known, and most unknown, scam and sales agencies - got called twice by random numbers in the same amount of days?
Exactly.
When it first rang less than a minute ago, he'd just stared at it for a few long seconds before scrambling to pick up before the call could end, throwing up his holographic projector at the same time so he could set right to work on tracing it.
And then he waited.
And waited.
… And waited.
He could hear what sounded like breathing on the other end of the line, but other than that, nothing.
Finally, he cracked and spoke first. "Yello?"
"It's you!" the same voice from last time exclaimed, sounding surprised and something along the lines of relieved.
Tony squinted at his own screens, swiping one map away and zooming in on another. "You do realize you called me. And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume you actually meant to call me this time, right? Cause otherwise you really need to work on your number memorizing, kid," Tony informed him dryly.
Something rustled on the other side, and the caller let out a huff of a laugh. "You're right - about me meaning to call you," he clarified; his voice had taken on a strained hue.
And. Alright. Let it not be said that Tony is incompetent, because that would not end well for whoever said it, since it was verifiably untrue. Tony was just… forgetful. No, that didn't really fit either. It was more that, once his attention was keyed in to one point of a subject, the other parts just sort of… faded away.
So it took Tony a second to recall the part of the last call where the kid had been shot.
"Are you in a hospital?" Tony asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at his holographs and highlighting emergency pediatric facilities in the Queens area. He had a creeping intuition that the kid probably hadn't gone to any, but hey, here's to hoping, right?
Said kid only hummed. A very high pitched, very guilty sounding hum.
"Kid-"
"Old dude," the other interrupted petulantly, though he sounded somewhat distracted. More of an automatic quip than anything.
"Kid," Tony started again, more firmly. "You need medical attention." There was no immediate reply, and Tony hesitated for a moment. "If you're worried about your safety, I've got a facility that can help you," he tentatively offered.
The kid - probably teen - let out a distinctly pained noise, quickly trying to cover it up with his own babbling chatter. "That's ah, really nice, but also, like, no. I mean, I literally have no idea who you are. You could be some kind of kidnapper murdery type guy. Which. That's terrible; please don't be a kidnapper murdery type guy."
Tony let out a huff and ran a rough hand through his hair, mussing up his already tousled locks before he set his hands back to work on the holographic keyboard. "Firstly, I take offense to that. Secondly," Tony paused, squinting. "I also take offense to that."
And then Tony was momentarily shocked into stillness when the kid all but demanded, "Keep talking," going for light but missing the mark by a mile. He sounded like a strangled cat.
Tony felt a sense of dread settle heavily on his shoulders as he complied, fingers veritably flying over his keyboard as he tried to just track down where the kid was so he could just goddamn help him. "I'll have you know that I've got better things to do than kidnap kids who already have no self-preservation, and - very grudgingly -" he emphasized, "I can admit that you should be proud for following the first rule young padawans must follow - Stranger Danger. So kudos to you for that, Skipper." He tilted his head, heartbeat ticking up when a red, glowing outline suddenly encompassed the majority of the Queens district. It wasn't much of a narrowing down, but at least it confirmed the geolocation from last time. "Speaking of skipping," Tony segued, continuing to ramble, "shouldn't you be in school right now mister? Don't tell me you're a truant," he said with exaggerated reprimand.
A sharp, pained inhale from the other end of the line cut him off from further prattling, and his gaze snapped back to the phone.
"What." he ordered.
For a few seconds, there was only heavy breathing, and Tony felt an overwhelming sense of panic crash down on him.
"What happened." he demanded, rising fully out of his chair like his position hovering over the phone would help the situation any. "Are you safe?" he pushed, unwilling to word it any other way.
The pause stretched for another infinitely long moment before finally, finally, a hoarse voice gritted out, "I'm okay," between muffled breaths.
There was a quiet clink of metal on metal, followed by a relieved sigh, and it hit him.
That was -
Tony's jaw dropped, a breath of air escaping his lungs. "You - tell me you didn't just -" Tony cut himself off, pitching down heavily into his chair and dropping his head into his hands. The faint inkling of a newfound type of respect he'd felt for Pepper and Rhodes the day before came back with a vengeance. He scrubbed his face. "What, exactly, was that?" he asked, struggling to keep his tone even.
.
Peter froze.
"What was what?" he blurted, just finishing taping down the corners of the fresh bandage against his side.
"It didn't work the last time, and it sure as hell won't work now," the man responded dryly, and Peter winced. Worth a try.
"I'm all good now," he decided on saying, imbuing as much jovialness into his tone as he could, which resulted in him sounding like an inordinately happy chain smoker thanks to how raw his throat was from him holding in some rather unpleasant sounds. Lovely.
"You're all good now." the other repeated, sounding so done that he went past the ability to express it with emotions. Peter was fascinated that he could have that effect on a veritable stranger. Usually it only happened with Ned.
"Mhm," Peter managed to get out.
"You - no," they said, and it then amazed Peter how quickly they'd gone from dead inside to sounding like they were on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"Me yes," Peter replied lightly, falling into somewhere between his own behavior and that of his Spider-Man persona.
The man gave an exhausted sounding sigh. "Please, for the love of Pete" - Peter choked - "get help; I will give you help," he practically pleaded, and Peter felt a twinge of guilt.
"I'm fine, really," he said earnestly. "I promise."
There were a few moments of silence on the other end, then another deep sigh. "Did it come out in one piece?"
"Uh - ah, Yes."
"Did you disinfect the area?"
"Ugh, yeah."
"Are you currently bleeding out?"
A snort. "No."
"Did you stitch it?"
Peter hesitated. "Not yet?" he hedged, since it wasn't like he could just tell the man that, even with the cotton in it, the bullet's entry hole had shrunk down enough already that it'd only require a couple of stitches at most so he just chose to forgo the process altogether. Nope.
The man condemned him with a few moments of silence before wearily asking, "Did you at least bandage it?"
"Yep!" Peter cheerfully replied.
Finally, grudgingly, the man assented, giving a very reluctant, "Alright."
Peter felt a grin flash across his face. "Great! -"
"Na-ah-ah," the man cut him off. "You're calling me tomorrow too, you got that? So I can live without the burden of not knowing if you're dead in some ditch because you refuse to seek proper medical attention," he groused.
"Aw, you worry?" Peter simpered, grinning impishly.
"Brat," the other muttered and then ended the call without another word, the dial tone ringing out sullenly as if echoing the man's own frame of mind.
Peter let out a sigh of his own and leaned his head back against the tub in his bathroom, finally letting his bunched muscles relax as he just laid there and breathed.
He'd been right about the call helping to distract him, though, and it laterally served to only pique his curiosity even further about the mystery identity of the man on the other side. He seemed to genuinely care for Peter's well being, which was rather touching, even though - or maybe because - the guy didn't actually know who Peter was.
I'll call back tomorrow, the teen decided.
And maybe he could find out who, exactly, the man was.
.
Meanwhile, in Stark Tower, halfway across the city, a certain holograph's red outline had narrowed down to about half its initial size, and the man in front of it thudded his head against a wall.
