So, uhm… surprise? :)
000
"Mister Stark!"
Tony groaned, and tried to shift in his sleep. That's when he noticed someone was shaking him gently, and he felt the makeshift gag rubbing against his lips.
"C'mon, Sir, please open your eyes."
What kind of drug had he been injected with this time? Why was he starting to hear voices? If he was starting to lose his mind, things were going to get awkward very fast. And more difficult. Not that the current situation he was in was any more simple though.
More voices were heard, but those ones were more muffled and he couldn't grasp the meaning of what they were saying.
He felt the fabric invading his mouth slid off, the ties in his back loosen up, and suddenly he was finally able to get his hands to his belly, relieving his aching shoulders and protecting his ribs from any more hit. The mechanic didn't dare move his legs, scared he'd only rekindle the pain.
Corll's "interrogation session" hadn't lasted for long. Tony remembering an emergency interrupting his captor and he had ended up alone in the room, on the ground and unable to get up. The engineer was pretty sure he had a few broken ribs, and his face was probably a real rainbow by now with all the bruises he could practically feel forming on his face. But the most painful was his right leg, which had made an ominous "crack" under the never ending hits, before starting to send waves of pain through his whole body.
"Tony."
That voice sounded familiar too, but he wasn't able to remember who it belonged to. He was at least able to determinate it sounded masculine. So, A for efforts?
"Mister Stark, if you don't open you eyes… uh, I'll sing the first song that comes to mind, and trust me, it's not going to be pretty. God, what am I even saying?"
Growing quickly annoyed about the fact that he couldn't be left alone, the inventor forced himself to try and pry his eyes open, blinking a few times before his view cleared. There was a face in front of him, pretty young too. Brown eyes were gazing at him with an obvious worry and a deep frown. It took Tony a few seconds before he could finally put a name to the face.
"Peter?" he croaked weakly.
He was rewarded with a huge smile from the teenager. Oh, how he had missed this expression.
"Hey, Mister Stark. How are you feeling?"
"I'd kill for a cup of coffee," he blurted. "Or ten."
And even though that was the truth, he had answered that because he really didn't feel like the lancing pain in his ribs and leg. He shifted his head slightly, and realized that the young hero was easily and almost entirely supporting the older man's weight. The movement also made him aware of the other person in the room. Steve Rogers was smiling at him, looking tired but relieved.
"Hey, Tony."
"Hey, Captain", replied easily the engineer. "I think Ronny was looking for you."
"Ronny?"
Tony felt his mouth twitch up as he took into view the two confused faces of his enhanced saviours.
"Not very tall", he explained, "quite grumpy and an ego at least as big as mine."
"Ah, I see, indeed. We may have met him," Steve hummed. "Come on, let's go; this base is secure now. The others are waiting for you."
Tony tried to get up on his own and without Peter's support, but his arms didn't have any strength left and only managed to stumble and wince as the pain made itself known again. It didn't go unnoticed, and the teenager slipped his arms under his mentor's to carry him.
"Let me help", he offered softly.
"Thanks, Underoos," the billionaire murmured gratefully.
That was when he pronounced the familiar nickname that he realized his protegee had removed his mask in front of Captain America. He threw a glance at Steve, and decided now was probably not the good time to make any kind of comment about this. There would be a time for this later, though. The man looked tense, torn between wanting to help carrying the injured mechanic and scared of the reaction Tony would have if he did. Pushing down the urge to roll his eyes because it certainly wouldn't make the situation better, he asked instead how they had found him.
"Natasha and Clint went to the warehouse where Corll had wanted to lure you to. They found your armour, as well as a few HYDRA agents. They managed to trace them."
"Romanoff and Barton are here?"
"And so are Scott and Sam", Peter supplied as they started walking.
Tony turned his gaze to the boy, and smirked.
"Let me guess," he mocked gently, "You were a total fanboy when you met them."
Peter's beaming smile was enough of an answer. Rogers observed the duo, eyes twinkling in a strange but soft expression, before smiling as well.
"It's thanks to Peter that we found you, Tony," he declared. "You can be proud of him."
"That's not true," the youngest hero protested bashfully.
"You're the one who came up with the idea of tracing the agents, and I think I heard you were also the one who convinced everyone to go ask us for help."
The mechanic listened to the conversation with interest, biting the inside of his lower lip to try not to smile too broadly as he tried and failed to ignore the burning pride agreably warming his chest.
"Mister Rogers," Peter whined, "You know that I-"
"Always have been, Steve," Tony interrupted, answering the declaration the rogue hero had made a few moments ago.
Said rogue smiled knowingly, while Spider-Man got silent and closed his mouth with his teeth shutting together loudly, cheeks bright red and looking very embarrassed. The genius almost snickered but grimaced as it jostled his fragile ribs. Rogers sobered up immediately and looked at him worryingly.
"I'm really sorry, Tony," he announced softly.
There was no difficulty to understand what he was referring to.
"So am I, Rogers," Tony croaked as he tried to ignore the way his voice was menacing to betray him. "But we'll talk about this later."
It became quiet, and Tony tried to make his heart calm down as it was currently trashing wildly and painfully in his chest. Both Peter and Steve were peering at him in obvious worry.
Right. Enhanced hearing.
"Tell me, kid," he added in the hope of deflecting the current subject for something lighter. "Was I still high on drugs, or did I hear you menace me with singing?"
"No," the teen snorted, "I did say that. Looks like it worked, in the end."
Peter's chuckled vibrated through the engineer's body, who smiled soflty at his kid.
"I think I'd like to hear that," Tony said.
"Oh, trust me, you don't. Not if you'd like to keep your hearing."
"Can't be worse than my own singing. Not even a little song for good old me?"
"My singing is incredibly off key."
"Huh. What if I remove the Baby Wheels protocol?"
Peter's eyes lightened up, gaining an interested glint.
"Really?" he asked excitedly, grinning cheerfully at this mentor. "You'd do that? You'd be the only one to regret it if I do sing then."
"Not if I ask someone to record you so I can use this as blackmail material."
"You'll be too busy plugging your ears."
"Sure thing, kid."
"You promise you'll remove it if I do sing?"
"Only have one word, kid. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna make sure you stay safe, though."
"Well, in that case.."
The young hero interrupted himself and cleared his throat as he helped Tony stand straighter while carrying almost entirely the older man.
"You're going to hate me," the teen warned.
"Somehow, I doubt that," the billionaire retorted honestly.
"I can really pick any song?"
"Just stop delaying the inevitable, kid."
"Huh, okay."
Another pause, then the boy breathed in deeply and started… Singing? Screaming? Shrieking?
"LET IT GOOO, LET IT GOOOOO-"
"Oh my god, please no," Tony all but whined. "Just no-"
The spiderling hadn't exaggerated when he had described his singing as awful. The tone was irregular and completely off-key, and the song choice… was there even a need to start about this? Even Steve was grimacing at the screeching voice. The teenager was well aware that the two adults were now gritting their teeth but that didn't dampen his motivation; on the contrary, he grinned smugly and sang even louder.
"Peter," groaned the inventor, torn between laughter and irritation, "Please stop. You win. I surrender."
The boy ignored him and kept going. At least they were also moving forward and getting farther and farther from that damned room.
"Peter," he tried again, glancing at Steve who now looked like he was having fun.
Which, nope, not authorized. He couldn't be the only one suffering there. But Rogers grinned at Tony and shrugged, as if to gesture that he was unable to help with the singing tragedy that was occurring .
"You traitor," the mechanic muttered. "Peter. Please. I beg of you. Just stop".
He sighed in pure relief when his idiot intern finally stopped screeching to instead throw him a smug look.
"I did warn you," he snickered.
"I'll keep that in mind next time you threaten me."
The small group was going through a long and apparently never-ending bunch of hallways. Peter was on Tony's right and was supporting him without any strain, allowing the older man to stand on his good leg. Steve was on his left, hovering near them and ready to intervene if he needed to. A few minutes passed in an easy silence, and Tony wondered where the others were. His answer came shortly after, when they met with Scott Lang.
"Here you are!" he exclaimed. "Hi, Stark. Fancy meeting you there!"
He looked tired, too, but was for some reason positively radiating cheerfulness.
"I know, what a surprise, right?" the mechanic snarked back, grinning. "Had I known you'd be there, I would have made an effort with my outfit, I hope you'll forgive me for my current look."
"Awh, it's no trouble, really. By the way, did I hear someone trying to sing or was that a new mass destruction weapon prepared by HYDRA?" Ant-Man added, glancing pointedly at the teenager.
"Second option," hummed Peter with a grin. "We should be careful."
"Please don't ever do karaoke with my daughter, Pete. She's obsessed with that one song just because she knows I hate it. I still get nightmares from this."
"Not promising anything!"
They kept on chatting for the rest of the walk, as if they weren't escaping from an HYDRA secret base. It certainly could have been worse, Tony mused. The four of them finally managed to get outside, and the inventor glanced up. The sky was dark and clear of any cloud, the only lights around them coming from a few street lamps and cars headlights. The place was also disturbingly clear of any HYDRA agents.
"The HYDRA agents were already taken into custody," explained Rogers besides him because he was apparently a telepath now. "We tried to wake you up, but it took longer than we expected and we figured you'd like to wake up to a familiar face instead of a stranger's while driving to the hospital."
The engineer nodded, grateful of the initiative. Squinting his eyes to adjust his vision to the brutal lightning of the headlights, he managed to notice a few familiar shadows. Rhodey, Romanoff, Barton and even Wilson approached him to greet him warmly, which was quite a surprise coming from the last three. He hadn't quite expected them to be that friendly to him but that was certainly a nice change.
"Peter," Natasha began, "go make Tony sit on the trunk's ledge. He looks like he needs a breather. See you later, Stark. I'm glad you're okay. Or, well, that you're out of here."
Tony nodded again, at loss for words but too tired to really care, and allowed the teenager to guide him towards the nearest car. He sighed in relief when he was finally able to sit down, stretching his aching limbs. Peter sat down next to him, and the inventor took advantage of this to scrutinize him. No visible injury, which was a good thing.
"You okay, kid?" he still asked just to make sure he hadn't missed anything.
"I'm okay," the younger hero answered easily. "Not a singly injury."
"Good. Your aunt would have killed me."
"She was worried."
That earned Peter a curious and dubious glance from his mentor. The teen snorted.
"That's true," he continued. "She'll be happy to see you again. We're all glad you're safe now."
Not knowing what to answer, Tony glanced back at the building he had gotten out of. It looked absurdly normal, which was a shame if you asked him. There was nothing better than a sign announcing "Super evil bad guys inside. Stay out or die a painful death".
"That was dangerous", he finally breathed. "You could have been hurt."
"But I wasn't," Peter replied softly.
"That's good."
"They really wanted to help to save you, you know?"
"Who, the Avengers?" Tony hummed, his exhaustion finally catching up with him now that he knew he was safe.
"Everyone."
The older man didn't reply right away, submerged by a sudden flood of very much annoying feelings.
"It wouldn't have been worth you guys being hurt", he answered weakly.
He would have never been able to withstand the idea of Peter, or anyone else, getting hurt because of him.
"I'm sorry I have to contradict you, but that's not quite true, sir."
Tony glanced around, fighting back the sudden sleepiness washing over him. Rogers, Rhodey and Lang were talking together while throwing him an occasional glance, and the others had diseappeared out of his sight, probably to take care of some sparse agents or something of the kind. A cool breeze suddenly but gently brushed against his face, and he closed his eyes without really meaning to. As soon as he did, he felt his last bit of strength leave him and slipped slowly in a drowsy state, half asleep. He was still hearing the noises around him but barely reacted to them.
This whole mess was far from over, he knew that. There were still many things to take care of, like finding the weapons traffickers Corll had been in contact with. And there would probably have a lot of long but hopefully calm conversations with the Rogue Avengers when he'd be healthy enough again. That could wait, though.
Tony felt something on his shoulder. Unless it was his own head resting on something? Not that it really mattered. After a few moments, he realized he was probably leaning on his intern's shoulder or the otherway around, but he didn't have the strength to pry his eyes open and see for himself. Peter seemed to notice his mentor was falling asleep.
"I don't think you realize it, Mister Stark," the teen voiced softly, "but you're really an amazing person. I don't know what we would have done without you. I don't know what I would have become without you. You're always doing your best for the people around you, so it was time we began doing the same for you. So, each time you'll need someone to count on..."
Being a Stark had its advantages and flaws. Tony always had a hard time trying to differentiate the two.
"… I'll be there."
But Peter was here and that was the only thing that mattered right now.
-000-
So, yeh. I'm honestly as surprised as you here. It's been what, two years? Man I became the very thing I always dreaded from my favourite writers. I am so sorry for taking (quite literally) forever to translate that last chapter. I don't really have an excuse, except for the fact that I lost all motivation to write and translating suddenly felt like an overwhelming task and then I was so busy trying not to drown with school that it kind of slipped out of my mind.
I'd still think about it from time to time, though, and earlier today I thought about it again, and felt about about it again, and I was suddenly like "If you don't finish it, it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life. Don't be that person who never tells the ends of the story. It's already written you literally just have to translate. DO IT. NOW." aaaannnd that's basically how I'm finally posting the last chapter, two years late, but hey, better late than never right?
On the plus side, I feel like I'm more comfortable with English than I was two years ago (once again, what the heck? Two years already?) so hopefully you won't be too bothered by grammar mistakes! If you spot any please don't hesitate to tell me and I'll correct them as soon as I can.
Thank you for all of your support and kind reviews. This was the very first fanfiction I had written and even though it was quite a bumpy ride it was a very enriching experience and it certainly helped me a lot with my English. You guys are amazing!