Happy must have radioed in their arrival, as they were met with medical personnel on the rooftop. Did Mr. Stark just have doctors hanging around the compound on hand all the time, or-?
Not that he had time to think about that now. They unloaded the barely conscious form of Katya out of the back of the helicopter and onto a stretcher, and began to wheel her away. Peter jogged to catch up. "Where are we taking her?"
"We're-" one of the doctors stressed- Peter didn't like what that implied- "- taking her for some scans to make sure there's no internal organ damage."
"Well, I've gotta come with you, so I can take off the webbing at least-"
The doctor waved him off. "We're actually going to leave that on for now, until the scans are done. But otherwise, Kid, we have tools for that."
"Yeah, but it's really strong, I calibrated the tensile strength myself-"
They headed indoors into a waiting elevator. Barely all of them fit, but Peter managed to wedge his way into a corner before anyone could protest.
The doctor Peter'd been talking to laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know you're worried, but we know what we're doing. We're going to take her to a CT scan now, which you can't go in with her, but you can wait outside."
The elevator opened to a floor Peter 'd never been on before, the hallway lined by glass rooms that were filled with different medical equipment. He had to admit that it put him somewhat at ease- as at ease as he could be with the current situation. He wanted to tug out his hair.
Once the doctors had wheeled Katya into scanning, all Peter could do was sit on the bench outside and hold his head in his hands, his knee jiggling furiously with anxiety. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, the fear and helplessness was setting in. How could he have let this happen? They'd been so prepared, they'd gone through a million different plans a million different times- the one night they weren't a hundred percent prepared, of course, had to be the one night the Widow showed up. Which is exactly how it always worked. Peter couldn't believe he'd been so stupid as to basically beg Katya to leave the tracker at home, as if by leaving that they could leave this all behind, just for a night. One fucking night, that was all that he asked for.
A figure sat down beside him but Peter didn't move, though he could recognize the shoes out of the corner of his vision. It was Mr. Stark.
"I trusted you, kid." He said, his voice low, tense. "I've seen what good work the two of you do together. I thought you guys could handle this."
Peter really, really didn't need this now.
"We were caught off guard-"
"-And now look what happened. Look at me." Mr. Stark demanded and slowly, Peter raised his head from his hands to do so. "You can't let your guard down. Ever. When you're an Avenger- when you can do the things you do- you have to be constantly on alert, because no one else can do what you need to when the time comes."
"Mr. Stark, I-"
"Zip it. I know this is just as much her fault as it is yours- don't worry, when she's awake she's getting an earful, too. I made her a suit and everything and she left it here-"
Peter gulped, already regretting what he was about to say. "I asked her to." He said, his voice raspy. "I told her to leave it here, and to leave the tracker, because we weren't getting any movement and we were just supposed to have one night where we could-" his voice cracked.
Mr. Stark sighed heavily, running a hand down his face. There was a beat where neither of them said anything, the only sound coming from the muted whirring of the machine behind the scanning room's doors- one of the only ones on the floor not made of glass, to contain the radiation. Peter'd gone back to staring at the floor, but he felt a hand clasp his shoulder.
"I get the feeling, Kid, I really do. But I"m still Iron Man even when I"m not in the suit, and I have to be ready for whenever the world needs me. If you're really going to do this- if you're going to be a superhero- you have to be ready, too."
"We were ready-" Peter rasped, but cut himself off. Sure, they were ready, when they'd been trying to be, but Mr. Stark was right- they'd let their guard down, stupidly, childishly- and now here they were.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark."
Mr Stark didn't answer immediately, but cleared his throat. "It's not me you need to apologize to."
They sat there for the next half hour or so- the scan was supposed to take about an hour from start to finish- in silence, the events of the night just constantly replaying in Peter's head. Watching her fight that widow had been terrifying- neither of them holding back, and they hadn't even been trying to kill each other. Peter'd always known that Katya could do more than he knew of, but he could never have imagined seeing her that way. It suddenly made a lot more sense why she was so hesitant to carry so much as her widow's gauntlet with her unless absolutely necessary. She could've torn Aneszka apart, easily, it had been obvious- but she'd just been trying to subdue, just trying to block-
And the only reason she got as hurt as she did was because of him. He hadn't seen the knife at first- he'd been too preoccupied with his webbing- but he could tell by the angle, and the downswing, and the way Katya had shoved him out of the way- that slice had been meant for him. And here he was, completely fine- not even a scratch on him, the only blood on his hands hers, dried and rusty from bandaging her up with his webs- and there she was, his homemade webbing the only thing keeping her from bleeding to death.
What if there was something wrong with her organs? What if the knife had torn through something vital? He couldn't tell at the time because there was just so much blood, but it had clearly been deep enough to knick something, even though he thankfully hadn't seen any bone- not that there as much bone in that part of the body-
Mr. Stark laid a hand on his back, in almost a paternally, comforting way. Peter hadn't realized it until now, but he'd started to cry. Not heavy, heaving sobs- his brain was too muddled for that- but there was definite wetness falling from his face to the floor as he held his head in his hands.
"It's gonna be okay, kid. She's tough."
Peter almost wanted to laugh. Tough didn't even begin to describe it.
"But you guys have got to stop it with the reckless shit. I let you stay on the ground to be neighborhood Spiderman because I know you can handle it, but this is bigger than that. And you should have treated it that way."
Peter nodded into his hands. "We will, Mr. Stark. I promise. This'll never happen again."
"You're right." Mr. Stark said, standing up. "It won't."
Peter didn't watch him go.