A/N: Evening, my lovelies. Happy Friday. Have some cute h/c to fuel your weekend. Things are starting to heat up now.
Thanks as always to my beautiful reviewers: EmilyF.6, sonicxjones, LoonyLovegood1981, Wisdomsqueen, One Wing In The Fire, NotCurrent, Guest, feelzyfeelz and scc4. I love you all dearly. Thanks also to those who followed this story and added it to their favourites list.
Not much to say here, except that I don't have a beta reader and I'm terrible at proofreading, so ignore any mistakes. Have fun with a concussed Peter and a sleep deprived Tony. What could possibly go wrong?
Enjoy.
ICARUS
5
TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN
He's breathing fast, but there is a tremendous weight pressing on his chest - and it hurts. Like he's been shot a thousand times through his chest, his stomach, his shoulders ... everything aches, but it's more than that; it's burning, stabbing at him, forcing him to take ragged breaths. His whole body is quivering. His chest isn't working like it should. It feels like his lungs are full of fluid - he can't get enough air - every breath rattles horrifyingly in his lungs. That sounds like a fucking death rattle.
Holy hell. Is that a death rattle?
Peter miserably presses an ice pack to the back of his head and wishes he had never been bitten by a radioactive spider which gave him superhuman abilities and the massive responsibility of fighting of all the petty criminals in Queens. Maybe that way, he would have met Tony Stark and taken the internship with no doubts and wouldn't have had to steal a hundred-dollar suit in an attempt to make himself more efficient at saving people. Maybe he would be getting more than four or five hours of sleep at night because he wouldn't be trying to compensate for the time spent at the internship by spending even more time on the streets. Maybe he wouldn't have Iron Man hunting him down and calling him a criminal. Maybe he would still have friends and family and be a normal high school student with good grades that aren't slipping by the day.
How the hell is he going to be able to face Mr. Stark at the internship tomorrow? Peter can barely meet his own eyes in the mirror, he feels so guilty - how is he supposed to meet his mentor's, with a concussion still going in full force from when the man dropped him onto a concrete roof? Justifiably, he might add - Tony was well within his rights to go after Peter, when he had broken into his building, stolen his suit, and deleted a file from his personal computer that outlined everything he knew about Spiderman's identity. Peter is in full support of Tony's actions.
It's his own actions that plague him. Is he any better than the criminals he fights? How can he face them and act like he's better when them when he's just as criminal as they are?
Can he even go out as Spiderman any more? The more he goes out, the more danger he's in - the more he gives Mr. Stark to track him down. And if he finds out Peter's secret ... well, that can't happen. Ever.
He's hidden both suits deep inside his closet, hoping that having them hidden will reassure him. It doesn't.
Collapsing into bed with an unchecked concussion is probably a very bad idea, but his ribs are really sore and he's so exhausted he can't even remember if he's done his homework yet.
"Peter, you're going to be late for school!" May shouts from outside his door.
"Nnnnnggghh," he says. "What? I just got into bed."
"Peter, you've been asleep since before I got back at half six last night. You didn't wake up once."
"I ... I think I'm sick."
His door creaks open and light comes pouring in. He hisses and shields his eyes against it, nausea twisting his gut. His head aches relentlessly. His ribs hurt too much to breathe normally, and his breaths are coming short and shallow.
"Oh, Peter, honey." A cool hand presses against his forehead. "You do feel kind of warm."
His enhanced metabolism gives him a higher body temperature than average. It's kind of a blessing at times like this.
"I'll call the school. Do you need me to stay home with you?"
"No - no." He waves a hand in her general direction. "I'll be fine."
"I'll get you some Aspirin before I go. Try and get some sleep, okay?"
Don't take Aspirin with a concussion. That's what all the Internet pages have told him. "'Mmkay."
"I'll be home this evening. Call me if you feel worse, okay?"
"Yeah."
"I love you."
She's gone before he can reply. He shuts his eyes, groans, and rolls over, groaning again as the weight shift puts more pressure on his aching rib cage. This is all your own fault, he tells himself sternly. You wouldn't be in this situation if you'd have taken a night off going on patrol. Then, against all odds, he manages to fall asleep again.
Suddenly there is a shrill, blaring noise pounding through his skull. Peter shuts his eyes tightly and clamps his hands over his ears so tightly that he rolls out of bed. Winded, he sucks in a deep breath, only to feel his still-bruised ribs scream at the motion. As he tries to breathe, he finds the source of the noise right next to his head, and slams his hand down on it.
It stops, and then there is beautiful, peaceful silence.
" ... Peter?" Tony's voice rings tinnily through the phone speaker, too quiet for normal people to make out, but at a perfect volume for a concussed Peter.
He looks at the date and time. It's Thursday. He should be at the Tower. Shit. "Oh - uh - hey, Mr. Stark."
" ... Hi ... You okay? Where are you?"
"Sorry. I completely forgot to call you. I'm ... sick. I'm really sorry."
"Is your aunt there?"
"No. She's working," Peter says, wondering where this is going.
"Are you infectious? I really need to talk to you in person. Can I come over?"
"What? Um, sure."
"Cool. See you in five."
"Five?" Peter says incredulously, but the line is already dead. He sighs, picks himself up off the floor, and in a fog stumbles into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. Catching sight of himself in the mirror, he winces at his reflection: exhausted eyes look hollowly back at him, rimmed with dark shadows and bags underneath. His face is pale and yellowish. When was the last time he had as much sleep as this? He should feel rejuvenated, not groggy. And why hasn't he healed yet? Upon lifting his shirt, he examines the bruising across his torso; it's mostly faded, and it's certainly less tender. All he has to do is not breathe too deeply, without giving Mr. Stark any indication that it was Peter he interrogated last night. Peter moves into the bathroom and manages to brush his teeth without incident.
He's attempting to comb his hair when Tony knocks on the door. "Open up," he calls. "Your oddly inquisitive neighbours are staring at me again."
Peter manages to make it to the door without falling flat on his face, which is something of an achievement in these circumstances. "I think they would stop staring if you stopped shouting about them," he says a little breathlessly, opening the door and leaning against it heavily to take the weight off his legs. He forgets that doors are not fixed objects, and it swings lazily forward until it bumps against an expensive custom-made Italian shoe. "Oh. Sorry."
Tony frowns at him with an odd mixture of amusement and concern. "Maybe you should sit down. Come on."
"M'fine."
But Tony takes him by the arm and leads him towards the couch, onto which Peter collapses bonelessly, too tired to stay standing. The light is making his head throb even more painfully, and he feels a little dizzy - not to mention nauseous. Nope, this is definitely not a good time to be having a serious conversation with his boss. In his own home.
"Why are you here, again?" he asks fuzzily - he can't quite remember the reason for the surprise visit.
"I have to talk to you, Peter. I'd be stupid not to."
"Um ... okay."
"After you left last night, there was a break in."
"Oh no. Really?" Peter flops his head back against the cushions. He doesn't even sound convincing to himself.
Tony, however, doesn't seem to notice. "It was Spiderman."
"Cool," he says unenthusiastically, because that's how he's supposed to react when someone mentions Spiderman. Like he admires him from afar, but doesn't really have any idea who he's talking about.
"Hey. Hey." Fingers snap in front of his closing eyes. "Stay awake. It's rude to fall asleep when you have company. And no - that is not cool. Spiderman broke into my Tower and stole the new suit I was working on."
"That's ... not good ... can I go back to bed now? I gotta ... " Peter lists sideways, straight towards Tony, who catches him by the arm and props him back up against the couch, but again, the movement jostles his bruised ribs, and he makes a pained noise.
"Whoa. Are you - is that blood?"
Peter stands up and looks at the dark smidge where his head was, a minute before. " ... No," he says, not at all convincingly.
"Peter. Peter. Hey, look at me." A hand takes his chin and raises his head so that he's looking into Mr. Stark's eyes. "Are you concussed? What happened?"
"I fell down some stairs," he mumbles. Has he used that one before? He can't really remember.
"And hit the back of your head? Come on, kid. I'm older than you. I'm not senile."
"I fell backwards."
"Does your aunt know?"
Peter recoils from his touch. "You can't tell her. Please don't."
"Who did this to you, Peter?" His voice is very soft. Gentle. Kind, even, which isn't something that Peter would ever particularly associate with his voice. Not that he isn't a kind person - of course he is - but his voice is generally cool, calculating. A little sarcastic most of the time. Peter can't meet his eyes. What's he supposed to say? It was you, Mr. Stark. You dropped me from nearly ten feet in the air onto my back. Oh, and by the way, I'm Spiderman. Sorry I stole your suit. Can I keep the internship?
"No one. I fell down the stairs."
"Then why can't I tell her? Shouldn't she know, so she can keep an eye on you?"
"If you tell her, she'll freak out. And when she freaks out, I freak out, and ... well, all I need to do is sleep it off. I heal fast. I'll see you tomorrow."
"If you think I'm leaving you alone with a head injury, you're very much mistaken. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Two," says Peter, whose vision (for whatever reason) always seems to remain unaffected by concussions.
"Oh. Okay. That sounded pretty easy."
"Mr. Stark, I'm fine. Please stop wasting your time."
"I'm going to text your aunt. Do you need me to stay until she gets here?"
Sensing that there's no point in arguing, Peter waves him off. "I'm fine. I'm going back to bed."
A firm hand grips his arm and starts to lead him towards his bedroom door. "Which one's your room? I don't want you swooning all over the floor like some damsel in distress."
"This one." Peter pushes open his door and is enveloped by the warm, loving embrace of the darkness inside. The furious pulsing at his temples is reduced slightly.
"Look, before I go - I have to ask you, Peter ... Spiderman got in through the window that you left open - and your account was left open on the computer, which he used to delete the file on himself. This probably sounds stupid, but - did you have anything to do with the break-in?"
Act innocent act innocent meet his eyes be apologetic act innocent meet his eyes don't freak out -
Peter drags his gaze up to eye level. "Holy crap, it's my fault he got in? Oh God - I'm such an idiot - Mr. Stark, I'm so sorry - can I do anything to make it up to you? I'm so sorry ... I didn't know ... "
A hand claps down on his shoulder. "It's okay, kiddo. It's not your fault. Rhodey just made me promise to check. But clearly you're not lying to me. You're a terrible liar. Go to bed."
Peter climbs into his bed and lies down with a sort of horrified amusement. If only he knew. "Mr. Stark? I'm really sorry." He isn't just apologising for leaving the window open. He's apologising for all of it: hiding the truth from him, deleting all his Spiderman information, refusing to tell him his identity last night, pretending he's on his side, webbing him up and leaving him on a rooftop for anyone to find, lying about his concussion, worrying him unnecessarily ... It all counts. Every part of it makes him an even more terrible person. All Tony's concern ... it makes Peter feel a bit sick, knowing that he's lying through his teeth to the very same man who's looking after him while he's injured. And that he can never stop lying to him.
"It's okay, kid." But it isn't. If only he knew.
Peter swears he feels someone pull a blanket up around his shoulders before the door clicks shut. Tony doesn't deserve this.
If only he knew.
Since when did he become so soft-hearted? Tony can't help but wonder what life has done to him to make him feel so paternal towards his slightly injured intern. He types out a quick message to May Parker, letting her know what's wrong with Peter and that he probably shouldn't be alone for the next twenty-four hours or so. Exactly six seconds after he presses send, she calls him. "Is he okay?" she asks immediately. "Is he badly hurt? Still bleeding? Oh my God, does he need a hospital?"
"He's okay," Tony says quickly. "Just sleeping it off. He didn't want to worry you."
"Mr. Stark? Why were you at my apartment?"
"I got worried when he didn't turn up for the internship, so I called him. He didn't sound too good over the phone, and I was in the neighbourhood, so I dropped in to check up on him." He replies smoothly, without hesitation. May doesn't need to know that he also dropped in to quiz her son about whether he purposefully allowed a vigilante to break into his workplace and steal a suit, as well as delete information. Though that was mainly Rhodey's idea - he insisted to Tony was being too stubborn about Peter, and doesn't it seem a little convenient that Spiderman knew exactly when and where to break in? Tony maintains that anyone could have seen the open window, and that the computer was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but with Pepper in full agreement with Rhodey, he didn't have much choice but to talk to Peter. When Peter didn't show up, Rhodey fixed him with a triumphant look until Tony called. The rest is history.
But Rhodey and Pepper haven't spent three months getting to know the kid - they don't understand that Peter is so inherently good, so innocent, so well-behaved, that he would never in a hundred years even think about doing something like this, let alone lie about it afterwards. Peter tried to lie to him once before, and Tony was able to see through it instantaneously. Which wasn't difficult.
Again, Tony is brought back to the mystery of how Peter got his concussion, and hurt his ribs at the same time, from the looks of things. The raw fear in May's voice when she called makes him feel sure it isn't her. Could it be a high school bully? But why would they assault him on his way home from school? That doesn't make any sense. How would they know where he was? What would they have against him - the internship? But Peter told Tony that most people at school don't even believe the internship is real. (When Tony offered to come and pick him up from school one day, just to show them, Peter looked so alarmed that Tony started organising a field trip to the Tower with Midtown School for some of the classes. Peter doesn't know yet, and Tony fully intends to make it the most embarrassing field trip he's ever been on. In the nicest way possible, of course.)
He didn't want to alarm Peter with the suit, so he packed it into a briefcase before coming in, but once he's out of the door Tony immediately gets into the metal armour again and flies off. He doesn't have time to be driven around today.
Back at the Tower, his thoughts are getting too much for him, so he turns up his music to full volume and tinkers with a robotic hamster that he's been working on for no real reason ("It's a pet that requires no care and can't die!" he said, advertising it to Peter, who replied, "I think you just described a soft toy, Mr. Stark."). The easy, mechanical motions come to him without difficulty and he enjoys the feeling of the music blasting through his brain, so loud that any other thought is completely obliterated.
It is a not at all unhealthy coping mechanism and Tony swears by it.
What feels like minutes but is probably hours pass before the music shuts off abruptly. "Tony," Pepper says firmly. "Come to bed. It's four in the morning and I can't sleep because the walks are vibrating. You need sleep."
Four in the morning? The robotic hamster isn't very complicated; it should have been done hours ago. He looks down. In his hands is a small metal bird. "Huh," he says. "Look."
He flips a switch and the bird flies over to land gracefully on her shoulder. "That's lovely, Tony," Pepper says tiredly. "Now you can come to bed."
She turns to leave and Tony follows her reluctantly, not in the mood to argue. His ears are still ringing a little from the loud music, and the chorus of the song is still stuck in his head, bass pounding violently at his temples. Jeez.
Pepper's talking about that Winfield guy from yesterday. " ... rescheduled the meeting that you had to cut short yesterday, but I'm busy, so you'll either have to find someone else to take or do it on your own. It's at five tomorrow evening. Please try and be polite. He was pretty angry yesterday."
"So was I," Tony mutters.
"Yes, well, yesterday you had a good excuse. But tomorrow, you won't. So if you don't want to get materials for a lower price - "
"I don't."
" - then be civil and explain to him that you don't think you can accept at this point in time. And buy him some chocolates or something to say sorry."
"How about a robotic hamster?"
"A box of chocolates, Tony."
They get into bed without further incident and Tony manages to fall asleep fairly easily, which is a first. He doesn't even have nightmares - instead, he has an oddly surreal dream about a cuttlefish that looks a lot like a shark. His teacher is telling him that it is most definitely a cuttlefish, but Tony's trying to persuade her that it isn't - "Look, it has shark teeth!" - and then he gets into the pool they're looking at and the shark bites his hand off. Except it's a cuttlefish, and there's no blood.
He wakes up at nine a.m. in a cold sweat. That was weird.
Then he takes a shower, makes some unhealthily strong coffee, eats a gluten-free waffle (why the hell not?) and wonders down into his lab. Something was bugging him as he fell asleep last night - something he can't quite remember ...
Peter. Why did he have a concussion? It's obvious he didn't fall down the stairs - falling over has been his excuse for every single bruise Tony has dared ask about, and yet Tony has never once seen evidence towards this alleged clumsiness. Quite the opposite, actually; Peter moves gracefully. He sees obstacles in front of him. He moves out of the way of things he could walk into. Surely someone who falls over that much would trip at least once in the chaos of Tony's lab?
"FRIDAY," he says.
"Yes, boss?"
"If, theoretically," Tony begins, then pauses to recollect his thoughts. "There was a kid who kept coming in with bruises and lying about where he got them, would it be right to investigate?"
"The Internet suggests that the best course of action would be to notify the theoretical child's school, so that further investigation can be done."
"Well, that's stupid. Would it be morally acceptable to conduct a personal investigation? With a drone or something?"
"I think that legally, that would be considered stalking."
"Hmm. But for a justifiable cause?"
"Even then."
"Okay. Never mind. I'm just looking out for him. Can you piece together video footage of Peter going from the Tower to his house? Using security footage, YouTube, anything you can."
"Certainly, boss."
"And send May Parker a text message asking how Peter is this morning."
"Done."
Tony sets about following the specs that Spiderman left for him to start making adjustments to his suit. He's pissed beyond belief, but he's not just going to ignore the idea now that someone he hates has helped with it. That would be counter-productive. Besides, Peter was the one who came up with the idea in the first place. He deserves most of the credit, not Spiderman, whoever the hell he is. Of course the little shit is also a technological genius, as well as having numerous genetic enhancements that make him fast, strong, and an asshole.
May responds to his text about an hour later, saying that Peter is feeling better and is back at school today, against her better judgement - and that he hopes to be coming to the internship later as well. Maybe the kid really does heal fast. He vaguely remembers something about today being the last day before spring break, so at least he'll have some time to recover.
Tony goes out for lunch and wonders idly whether Peter would like to go and meet Winfield with him.
