Peter didn't want to leave Tony's embrace when it came time to put him in the back seat of the SUV.
It took plenty of coaxing, and the promise that he would be right there beside him – which he'd planned to be anyway.
"Let me look at your face, buddy," he murmured to the boy, trying to get him to loosen his grip a little. "I want to see your cheek."
"It's okay," Peter told him, but he did pull back and look up at him, and Tony hugged him for a moment, before running a careful finger along the swollen cheek.
"You're so amazing," Stark told the little boy. "I've said that before, right?"
That made Peter smile. The first smile since he'd left his last classroom.
"Yes."
"Good."
The medic handed Tony the icepack, wrapped in a soft towel to keep it from being uncomfortable.
"We're going to hold this against your cheek, okay?" he said. "It'll make it hurt less."
"Alright."
Tony shifted Peter, putting him into the middle of the back seat and buckling him in before the little boy could change his mind and demand to be held, instead. Then he moved to sit beside him, and Natasha joined them, sitting on the other side so they had Peter between them. The medic handed Romanoff a blanket, mentioning that he didn't want Peter cold, and it would help keep him from going into shock, and Tony draped it over Peter, who immediately cuddled against him as well as he could. He needed to be touched, and comforted, but that was fine, really, because Tony needed that, too.
"Did you talk to your classmates about coming to the tower on Monday?" he asked, gently, as the SUV pulled out of the parking area and onto the street.
Peter looked up at him, the icepack being held against his cheek and the injured arm tucked carefully between him and Tony.
"Yes. They're excited. We already agreed on the design we're going to build."
"You did?"
He nodded.
"Yeah. The wheels are going to work better for our location, so we're going with wheels, and maybe a design that will flip it back over if it gets knocked to the side."
"That's a good idea."
He was glad the boy was talking and wanted to keep him talking as much as he could. To help get him over the worst of the fright. Natasha clearly had the same idea. She frowned, looking confused.
"What are you two talking about?"
"My Mars rover group project," Peter replied, looking up at her around the icepack on his face.
"Your what?"
Tony smiled, sliding his arm behind Peter as well as he could, wanting to support him.
"The problem with acting like you know everything, Romanoff," he said with a slight smile. "Everyone thinks you know everything going on."
Natasha rolled her eyes, allowing the comment, since it made Peter smile, too.
"Are you going to tell me? Or do I bribe Peter with cookies and chocolate milk?"
"Tell her about it," Tony told the boy.
"It's long."
"It's a long drive to the compound."
Good point. Peter nodded.
"Okay."
Romanoff didn't roll her eyes, again, but she did toss Stark a look that plainly said he owed her one. His expression was almost cheerful in reply, and he used his free hand to tuck the blanket around Peter a little better as the boy launched into a full on explanation of the project that they were working on in his last period class.
OOOOOOO
"You got him?"
"Yeah."
"Don't slip."
"I'm good."
Peter had eventually fallen asleep on the drive to the compound. Hardly the first time, so Tony and Natasha were neither worried about it. When they pulled up – and for the first time Tony realized that they'd been part of a fairly large convoy of black vehicles as they'd driven north – the medic, Stark and Natasha had conferred and had decided that they wouldn't wake Peter. Tony could carry him to the medlab for the tests that the medic wanted the doctors to run, and then if he was still asleep, they could just put him to bed.
The boy didn't rouse when Tony carefully pulled him from the back of the SUV, blanket and all, and it was one of the surgeons that had initially diagnosed his cold that met them at the door. He didn't need to be told what had happened; the medic had called ahead, and both Peter and Coulson – who had been transported to the compound in a separate car, under the watchful eye of a few others – were both going to be subjected to a number of tests.
Tony hovered, protectively, while he watched the doctor position his son for x-rays of his upper arm, and then carefully run his fingers along the cheek, pronouncing it swollen but undamaged, despite the bruise that was forming. Fury arrived as they were finishing up, and the SHIELD director walked over to study Peter, and then Coulson, who was sitting up holding an icepack, as well, and giving another run through of what had happened to him at the school.
"How did you know it was a setup?" Tony asked, realizing that there was no way Romanoff should have made it there in time to stop the two renegades from making off with Peter.
A realization that made him more grateful than ever.
"Hill was suspicious about being called away, and once we knew that it wasn't real, it raised several red flags. Since Peter is her primary concern, right now, it was easy enough to assume that he was the reason for the decoy. I'm a fairly suspicious man, anyway," he pointed out – unnecessarily. "So when I brought up the issue with Romanoff, it didn't take us long to decide it wouldn't hurt to double-check things."
"Clint and I were already in the city," Natasha said, softly, in deference to the fact that Peter was still asleep. "So, we headed that direction – and called for more people when I couldn't get through to Coulson."
The SHIELD agent shook his head.
"I can't believe Jenson was the mole…"
Tony frowned, looking at Fury.
"You knew something was up?"
"Not with Peter," Nick corrected. "We knew we had someone in the organization who was passing information to Hydra. At least one person, if not more. We just didn't know who they were."
"Or that they were so far up in the chain of command," Romanoff said.
"They must have really wanted him, if they were willing to expose two agents to get him."
Now Tony looked worried, again. He didn't have to ask who Hydra was.
"What's to stop them from trying again, with other moles?"
"Me," Natasha replied, her expression as dangerous as Stark could ever remember seeing it. "We have two of them, and they're dead. No warning, and no chance to do any housekeeping. I'm going to go through their files and their residences and look for any indications of any others involved with SHIELD, here in the compound or New York, and once I've cleared house, here, I'm going to take a small team and going to move on to the bigger fish and take out the entire organization."
"You're talking about HYDRA?" Tony asked, just to be clear.
"Yeah," Nick answered, first. "They've exposed themselves – or Sitwell exposed them without telling them what he was doing. Either way, it's exactly what we needed. Not that I'm glad they made a move on Peter, of course, but it's given us an opportunity that I'm not going to waste. By the time Natasha and her team are finished, HYDRA is going to wish they'd never heard of Peter Stark."
"I volunteer for that detail," Coulson said.
"You're Peter's detail," Tony reminded him – even though he didn't have any say in that, really. SHIELD was Nick's charge, not his own. "He needs you."
The agent looked surprised and chagrined.
"I failed him."
"You were tricked by a deep operative who also happened to be a friend," Romanoff pointed out. "It could happen to anyone."
"It wouldn't have happened to you."
None of them argued that, but Tony shrugged.
"Peter likes you, and he's comfortable with you. I don't see it as a fail, and unless Nick says otherwise, we definitely want to keep you."
The SHIELD agent didn't get a chance to reply, because the doctor was returning with a yellow envelope that held Peter's x-rays. Everyone stopped and watched as he put two of them up into the lighted wall mount, and Tony wasn't the only one to walk over to look.
"What did you find?" he asked, examining them. One was Peter's head, and the other was the injured arm. Neither looked terrible, but Tony was aware that he wasn't a doctor. "Anything broken?"
"No." The surgeon looked over at the little boy, but Peter was asleep. "There's some bruising on the arm, as you already know. It might be a bit sore for a few days – a week at the most. His facial structure is sound, too. Nothing broken. Just a bruise."
"That's a relief. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Do we keep him in here?" Fury asked.
The surgeon shook his head.
"No. Put him to bed."
Tony frowned.
"He hasn't had dinner, yet."
"He isn't going to starve, and he'll feel better once he's had some rest. Feed him a big breakfast, tomorrow. Or a late night snack if he wakes up before that."
"I can do that." Tony looked at the others. "Does he go to school Monday?"
Fury nodded.
"Hill is already on her way back. The school was locked down while we made our sweep and cleared the garbage, but they don't know what happened, and why – and we're not telling them any more than they need to know. As far as they're concerned, it wasn't anything to do with Peter, or you."
"The press was there," Stark pointed out.
"And they're still there," Clint said. "But they don't know anything, either. They don't even know anyone died, since we took the bodies out through a side door and directly into a van."
"What's the story going to be?"
"A couple of terrorists were chased into the school, and were dealt with," Fury answered. "Nothing more. Nothing less."
"Which is the truth," Natasha pointed out.
"You won't get Peter to stay home on Monday," Coulson added, lowering the icepack he was holding to his temple. "He's too excited about his Mars rover project."
Tony frowned.
"That's true, isn't it?"
"It's all he talked about, today," Phil confirmed.
"Huh. Well… I'll ask him what he thinks about it, tomorrow. If he's freaked out, I'll keep him home."
"Better to get him right back into the swing of things," Fury said. "That way he doesn't have time to let it eat at him, or anything."
"He's right," the surgeon agreed. "Keep things as normal as possible."
Tony nodded, and they watched as he carefully gathered the sleeping child into his arms.
"If anyone needs us, we'll be in my rooms."
"Why yours?" Clint asked, curiously.
"His AI is in his room," Romanoff answered.
"Correct."
Tony left with his son, and the surgeon walked out, as well – after reminding Coulson to take it easy over the weekend. Clint turned to Natasha.
"Are we leaving, then?"
She shook her head.
"Not yet. I'm going to wait and chat with Peter before we go – just in case either Sitwell or Rumlow said anything when they were alone with him."
"And because you don't want to leave without saying goodbye," Coulson added.
"That, too."