Peter finds himself confined to the hospital bed in Avengers Tower until Saturday, and while it isn't a terrible experience, he'd much rather be at home resting- or even better yet, not blown up or needing to rest at all. No way in hell does he regret doing what he did (he still feels incredibly giddy whenever he thinks about the fact that he saved Daredevil's life), but he does wish he'd gotten slightly less hurt in the incident.
While he's still a little bit doped up on pain meds and feels like he probably isn't that badly hurt, he tries to sit up and realizes that, yes, he is that badly hurt. That requires him to be even more doped up on pain medications which leads to some absolutely fantastic videos when Ned and MJ come to visit shortly after Peter's mistake, or as he prefers to call it, heroic rescue. Of course, they can't show these videos to anyone, because they consist of Peter having a very heated debate with himself over whether or not he'd be able to regrow limbs. He's adamant that if they're going off of spider biology, then since he is still technically a juvenile, he would be able to grow back a limb if he shed his exoskeleton. On the other hand, he doesn't have an exoskeleton to shed. Ned offers up the idea that maybe it would grow back cell by cell as Peter shed his normal skin and that after a few years he'd have a nice new limb. MJ tells them that she'll hold the stopwatch if they want to test that theory out.
An x-ray taken late Friday night shows that Peter's ribs seem to have knitted themselves back together to the point that the broken ones are just cracked, and the shattered ones are just broken, as well as showing that his collarbone is healing up at a similar rate. Tony reluctantly agrees to let May take Peter home the next morning and sends a few bottles of painkillers that were synthesized specifically to work with his metabolism, along with instructions to actually take them and not just suffer through the pain because he's heard it grows character or something.
In another display of her infinite kindness, May manages to keep her worried ranting to herself for the entirety of Peter's stay at the tower. And the cab ride home. But once they enter the apartment and she gets Peter settled on the couch with the softest blanket they own and the TV remote, she just can't hold it in anymore.
" Peter, baby, I am so proud of you for doing what you did. You saved your friend's life. I don't want you to ever think that I'm not proud of you for putting someone else's life ahead of your own like that, but I do want you to know that I'm not happy you got yourself in a situation where you got blown up," May says as she sits beside Peter on the couch, still avoiding touching his torso at all. "How did that happen?"
Peter shrugs and winces, because his collarbone is definitely still at least a little bit broken. "We miscalculated."
May stares at him.
He stares back.
" That's all I'm getting? 'We miscalculated.' What does that even mean?" she asks, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly to a frown.
" There weren't that many, and Daredevil listened in on them for, like, ages and it didn't sound like they were saying anything about military grade weapons. But Daredevil doesn't speak Albanian, so we were just going off the tone of voice," Peter says, staring up at the ceiling and letting his eyes follow a faint crack in the plaster. Before he had been loaded into the private car that took them home from the tower that morning, he'd been doped up to the gills so that he'd be able to sit up and wear a seatbelt without being in agony.
May seems to clock the vacant look on his face as he traces something invisible to her with his eyes and just sighs. Any sort of serious conversation is definitely going to have to wait until Peter's sobered up.
Something seems to snap Peter's attention away from whatever it was he'd been entranced by for the past few minutes, and he quickly turns his head to May. "Can I have my phone?" he asks sweetly.
May blinks at him. "You have your phone," she says in a gentle voice.
Peter looks shocked. "I do?"
" In your hand, baby."
" I do!" Peter says, his excitement palpable despite the fact that he doesn't even check his phone once he realizes he has it. "Aunt May?" he asks softly, looking up at her from where he's pulled the blanket up to his chin.
" Yeah?" she replies.
" Can we get Chinese food?" he asks, giving her his best puppy eyes. He thinks that the near-mortal wounds definitely make them more effective.
" Of course we can, baby. What do you want?"
" Sesame chicken," Peter answers immediately. "And crab rangoon," he adds on as an afterthought, still smiling brightly up at his aunt.
" From that place over on 35th?"
" Yep!"
His relentlessly cheerful attitude seems to break down the small amount of residual negative emotions May had been holding onto, and she finally returns the sunny smile Peter's been giving her.
" Alright, I'll go call in the order," she says, pulling out her own phone and stepping heading into the kitchen to make the call. By the time she comes back, Peter's fast asleep with his phone on his chest.
When Peter wakes up what could be either thirty minutes or three hours later, he finds a note lovingly stuck to his forehead. He blinks the sleep from his eyes and pulls the note off to read what's written in May's slanted handwriting.
Their delivery guy is sick. Going to get the food, should be back in half an hour.
Well, that means he can't have been asleep for too long if she's not back yet.
Peter notices his phone once it slides close enough to his collarbone that there's a bit of discomfort and finally picks it up to check it. His lock screen has a truly unparalleled number of notifications on it from Instagram, and he suddenly finds himself hoping that he didn't post anything about Spider-Man while he was incredibly drugged up. He's bad enough at keeping his identity a secret when he's completely sober.
When he unlocks it, he immediately goes to Instagram to check exactly what he posted. Thankfully, it's nothing incriminating.
It's a two-part post from last night, the first image being a selfie of him in the hospital bed giving a thumbs up with all sorts of monitors and an IV visible in the background, and the second image being one of Tony asleep in the chair next to the bed. The caption reads 'in this world its yeet or be yeeten' followed by the cowboy emoji.
Thank you, high Peter, for not revealing Spider-Man's identity. Either that, or thank you, people supervising high Peter and not letting him reveal Spider-Man's identity.
The first two comments are from Ned and MJ, both of which are spelling corrections. Ned's says 'yeeted*' and MJ's says 'yote*'. The rest of the comments section is comprised entirely of various iterations of either 'hope you get better soon', 'what happened?', or 'is that Tony Stark?'. He tags Tony in the picture to answer one of those questions.
Rather than respond to any of the 85 comments individually, he just posts another picture, this one of his ceiling with the caption, 'thank you for the concern everyone. I got slightly run over but I'm doing okay now'. He'd gotten the cover story for his injuries drilled into his head every five minutes over the past few days. A hit and run, at a street that Tony double checked to make sure had no surveillance cameras. There are even false records that Tony created saying Peter was admitted to an actual hospital. Sure, a smart enough person might be able to connect the dots here that Peter and Spiderman were injured at the same time, but that's still less incriminating than Spider-Man showing up in DC during the Decathlon and saving the entire team from Queens except for Peter Parker, who was strangely missing.
He looks up from his phone when he hears the sound of the door unlocking and smiles when he sees May come in carrying a plastic bag on each arm.
Later that evening when Peter's sitting on the couch, propped up enough that May can sit beside him while they watch the marathon of Star Wars movies that always seems to be playing on one channel or another, his phone rings from where it's fallen to the floor. May leans down to pick it up for him while Peter mutes the TV.
" It's 'Spanish Matt'," she says, reading off the name on the screen as she passes it over to Peter.
He vaguely remembers Matt promising to call.
" Hi Matt," Peter greets, making the world's most awkward eye contact with May while he speaks.
" Hey Peter," Matt says. "How are you feeling?"
" Um, well, the painkillers are doing a great job, but my ribs are definitely still broken. So we might have to postpone our next, uh, lesson."
May raises an eyebrow at Peter but doesn't say anything as she continues to listen to one half of the conversation.
" Are they really lessons?" Matt jokes.
" Fine, tutoring ," Peter corrects, stressing the second word more than is probably necessary. He doesn't know exactly how well Matt's super hearing works over the phone, but he's assuming it's only as good as the sound the microphone picks up.
" I take it your aunt's in the room if you're calling it that."
" You'd be right about that."
" Well, in that case, do you think you'd be up for an at-home tutoring session? I finally have some time off tomorrow, and I owe you a thank you," Matt says.
" Oh, that'd be great. My aunt's gonna be here though," he says, watching May perk up a little at the mention of her.
" Then maybe I'll actually get around to helping you with Spanish tomorrow. There any time that's best for you?"
" How about six?" Peter suggests.
" Sounds good to me. I'll see you then."
" You won't see me, ever!" Peter sees his opportunity for the joke and takes it, despite the funny look it gets him from his aunt.
There's loud laughter from Matt's end of the line. "Fine, I'll hear you then. Bye, Peter."
" Bye, Matt."
Once he hangs up, he can tell that May is ready to ask about eight billion questions.
" That was my Spanish tutor," he explains.
" Oh?" she says.
" He's gonna come over tomorrow to help me study for my test next week."
May raises an eyebrow. "I thought I just heard you say he won't see you ever."
Peter snorts. "Oh, he won't."
May looks at him like she thinks he might've taken too much of the pain medicine again.
" It was a joke," he tries to explain. "Because he's blind."
May makes a sound somewhere between laughing and choking. "Peter!" she scolds. "I can't believe you said that!"
" What? He thinks it's funny, and isn't his opinion the one that matters?"
May narrows her eyes a little and just takes another sip from the glass of red wine she's been working on for the past hour. "Well, I look forward to meeting him."
Peter unmutes the TV and they both fall back into the comfortable sound of Stormtroopers shooting in the opposite direction of the protagonists.
Peter must fall back asleep at some point because the next time he's even remotely aware of his surroundings, the sun is back up and the smell of coffee is filling the room. He sits up and groans at the way his ribs shift uncomfortably now that the painkillers have worn off. The sound of his pain seemingly summons May, who appears beside the couch a moment later with a glass of water and the pill bottle.
" You alright, baby?" she asks softly, dropping a pill into one of Peter's hands and pushing the glass of water into the other.
" I'm alright," he replies softly before putting the pill into his mouth and drinking half the glass of water to swallow it down.
" You want some breakfast?" she asks, heading back into the kitchen when the coffeemaker beeps obnoxiously.
Peter debates for a second whether or not he wants to try the muscle through whatever May might try and cook. He figures the odds are pretty good that it'll just be cereal, so he gives some sort of affirmative sound.
Unfortunately for both of them, May doesn't make cereal, and they have to spend half an hour trying to air out the apartment which now smells like charcoal that might've possibly used to have been bacon. After the excitement of putting out a grease fire, Peter finally argues his way into getting May to let him take a shower. He's Spider-Man; he can stand up for ten minutes under some hot water with average water pressure.
He might be Spider-Man, but he's still tired enough after taking a shower that he takes another nap.
May shakes him awake around five-thirty and Peter's honestly shocked that most of the day is already gone.
" Hey," she says softly, passing another pill and another glass of water off to Peter. "Your tutor's gonna be here soon. You want me to help you get some of your notes together or something while you get dressed?"
Peter takes the medicine and sits up, looking down at the pajama pants with little sheep printed on them and oversized t-shirt he's wearing. "I think I'll just wear this."
May gives him a slightly critical look.
" What? I got blown up. I'm allowed to wear pajamas in my own home," he argues. "Again, it's not like he'll see."
May actually laughs softly at that and shakes her head. "Alright. I went to the grocery store earlier, so Matt can join us for dinner."
As his aunt walks out of the room, Peter wonders if maybe May is the one who was recently severely concussed, seeming her apparent amnesia regarding the fact that they've already had one cooking disaster today.
He gets out of his bed, bends down to grab his backpack off the floor, and pulls out his Spanish binder and textbook. All in all, the process takes a solid five minutes, thanks to his multiple broken bones and the fact that the painkillers haven't kicked in just yet. Eventually, he makes his way out to the living room with his books and sets them on the coffee table. May seems to have occupied herself with picking things up off of the floor and considering everything Peter's seen Matt do, he's pretty sure that's unnecessary, but he figures that Matt will appreciate the sentiment regardless.
On the scale of mature adults, Matt is a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in skin-tight red leather, so Peter has absolutely no idea how punctual the guy is. Peter's seen him being a complete hot mess, but he's also seen him dead serious, so Peter isn't sure how put together Matt really is. His question is answered when Matt knocks on the door right at six o'clock.
He also immediately has about a hundred more questions, starting with 'how did you find me? I never told you where my building is, much less my apartment number.'
May opens the door wide with a smile on her face, and Peter can tell she's a bit surprised by what she sees. "Hello," she greets cheerfully. "I'm Peter's aunt. You can call me May."
" Nice to meet you, May. I'm Matt," he answers with a nice smile of his own. He's wearing a black suit like he has been almost every other time Peter's seen him being a real person, and to go with the red glasses that are definitely concealing a black eye, he also has a long, white cane in one hand. In the other hand, he has a bouquet of flowers and a tasteful gift bag.
" Hi, Matt," Peter says, once he's made his way to stand next to May at the door.
" Hey, Peter," Matt says. "I heard you got pretty badly hurt. Here," he adds on, handing over the flowers and gift bag to Peter. "The flowers are from Karen, by the way."
Peter just smiles at him. "They're great. Tell her I said thanks." He passes the flowers off to May, who takes them into the kitchen to find a vase for them, before offering his arm to Matt to guide him into the apartment, mostly for May's sake, though he's not sure if being more accommodating is something Matt would like from him in the future.
" I will. She must like you pretty well, considering all she gave me when I got hit by a car was a balloon and a lecture," Matt replies.
May turns to look at him with a very concerned and motherly expression. "You got hit by a car?"
Matt laughs and gives her a charming smile that makes her look like her heart's melting. "I wasn't really watching where I was going. Stepped right out into the street."
" Well, I'm glad you're doing better now," May says with a smile, setting her hand on Matt's shoulder reassuringly for just a second before she remembers her task of finding a vase for the flowers.
" I'm glad too," Matt replies as Peter guides him to the edge of the couch and they sit.
As Matt folds up his cane, Peter sees a dent on the end. Judging by Matt's love of clubs and crime-stopping, Peter's going to bet the dent was made by someone's head.
" Asi que," Matt says, turning his head towards Peter. " ¿ Cómo te sientes? Tus costillas escuchan mas mejor de cuando yo vi tu un par de días atrás."
" ¿ Qué significa costillas?" Peter asks, stuttering a little through the Spanish.
Matt runs a hand down his own side to show that he means ribs and repeats the word. "Tus costillas fueron quebrado muy mal. Podía escuchar los moliendando, ya no están haciendo eso."
Peter scrunches up his face. He can't imagine hearing broken bones sounds good. "Siento mas o menos ahora. Señor Stark di mí medicina so no puedo sientar el dolor. Debería hacer sanado en dos dias, ¿ posible tres?"
" Remember to include tenses and masculine endings, Peter. You said 'di' instead of 'dio' and also it's 'sentir' instead of 'sientar'." Matt corrects before continuing on in Spanish. "Eso es bueno, pero no quiero tu luchando para al menos un semana." Matt adds sternly, tilting his head as May comes back into the room.
" I was going to make dinner if you'd like to stick around for that, Matt," she offers, still smiling over at them.
Peter rolls his eyes at her and holds his hands up in a heart. She rolls her eyes back and shakes her head, still smiling.
" I'd love that, thank you," Matt says in English.
" Ella es un cocinero horrible." Peter blurts out in Spanish.
Matt laughs and responds in kind. "Yo se. Puedo oler que un cosa quemo este mañana, y huele de mucho comida de restaurants," he pauses, "Also, tenses again, Peter, she is a woman, so it's 'cocinera'," he reprimands in English.
Peter laughs at Matt's acknowledgment of her cooking skills and blushes at the same time because of his mistake. "Ella va a quemar lo sea que ella quiere cocinar."
" Te creo," Matt says.
They chat for a few minutes, Peter definitely struggling with the more conversational style Spanish as opposed to what he studies in class and his textbooks. The teacher is always suggesting they try talking to people who are native speakers, or at least fluent, and Peter's starting to really get why.
Surely enough, about ten minutes later, Matt sniffs the air and sighs. "Algo se está quemando."
" Should we try and help her?" Peter asks hesitantly, finally switching back to English.
" Might as well," Matt says with a sigh, standing up from the couch.
Peter extends an arm to him and Matt takes it with a smile; Matt's definitely offering a lot more support to Peter, even though he's the one being guided.
" Hey, Aunt May," Peter says awkwardly, causing his aunt to look up at them.
" Yeah, sweetheart? What's up?"
" I was wondering if we could cook tonight," Peter says, gesturing slightly between himself and Matt.
" Peter," May says sweetly, "are you saying you don't trust me to cook?"
" Uhh, maybe?" Peter says. "I love you, but I don't want to drive off my tutor with whatever that is that's burning in there." Peter gives the stove a skeptical look, and May swears under her breath, rushing over to the pan on the stove and pulling it off the heat before dumping it in the sink.
May stares down at the charred chicken and sighs. "Maybe you have a point."
" If you'd like," Matt offers, "I'd be more than happy to show you how to cook something."
" I—" May bites her lip. "That'd be nice, actually. Ben was always the one who did the cooking. I never really learned how."
The mood of the room drops significantly at the mention of Ben, Peter shifting slightly at Matt's side.
" I'd be happy to teach you a few things," Matt says with a kinder smile than the one he'd given before.
May smiles back at him. "Peter, why don't you go lay down? I think Matt can keep an eye on me—shit, sorry," she says, realizing her wording.
Matt laughs and shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. It's hard to avoid allegories of sight when you're talking."
Peter ends up laying down on the couch, just listening to the sound of voices and movement filtering in from the kitchen, interspersed with occasional laughter. It makes the whole apartment feel lighter, and Peter loses himself in the symphony of sounds and smells for a while until a knock at the door draws his attention back to his immediate surroundings.
" I'll get it," Peter calls, taking a moment to sit up and head over to the door. He isn't sure who he's expecting to be there, maybe one of their neighbors asking to borrow some coffee or something. But he isn't expecting- "Mr. Stark! Hi!"
" Should you even be up?" Tony asks, walking into the apartment.
" Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna like, run a marathon, but I can answer the door," Peter replies, following behind Tony.
" It smells pretty good in her— oh. Hi there," Tony says, waving at Matt.
" Tony!" May greets with a smile. "What brings you here?"
Tony rattles a bottle of pills. "Brought more of these, just in case. Didn't mean to interrupt date night, so I'll just be heading out. You kids have fun."
May laughs at that and shakes her head. "No- you're not—this is Matt. He's Peter's Spanish tutor," she explains.
" Oh, nice to meet you, Matt," Tony says, glancing over to Peter.
" Nice to meet you too—sorry, what did you say your name was?" Matt asks pleasantly, and it takes all of Peter's self-control not to laugh.
Tony actually gets a little flustered at that. "Tony. Gotta say, I'm not used to introducing myself," he says with a laugh.
" Oh? Why's that?" Matt asks in the same amiable tone.
" I have a pretty recognizable face. And uh," Tony gestures to himself from his rose-hued sunglasses down to his designer clothes. "It's good to meet someone else who appreciates the merits of sunglasses as an accessory."
" I'm blind," Matt deadpans, and Peter chokes on his own spit.
" Well, I gotta say," Tony really doesn't need to say, as he gestures to Matt, "you keep it pretty tight for a blind guy."
Matt just stares Tony down, and Peter tries not to laugh because he knows it'll hurt his ribs.
" Why don't you join us for dinner, Tony?" May offers, to break the awkward silence that Tony's comment prompted.
Tony helps May set the table while Matt finishes up cooking whatever it is he'd been able to throw together with the ingredients they had. To the relief of everyone involved, Tony doesn't make another pass at Matt.
" So," May asks once they're all sat at the small table at the edge of the living room, "What is it that you do for a living, Matt?"
" I'm a lawyer," he answers. "I have my own practice."
Tony snaps his fingers. "You're the one who worked on the Wilson Fisk case, aren't you? I knew I recognized you from somewhere."
" I'm glad you remember my firm for its successful case," Matt says. "The Frank Castle case is the first one that comes to mind for most people when they hear of Nelson & Murdock."
May shoots a look at Peter at the mention of the Punisher, as does Tony.
" That dude was a maniac," Tony replies with a shrug. "He tanked his own case if I remember right."
" He's troubled," Matt corrects. "Not a maniac."
"That's one word for it; dude was a full-blown psycho. He killed like fifty people. And he shot up a hospital. And didn't he kill the district attorney?" Tony continues, looking at Peter even as he speaks to Matt. Peter doesn't exactly condone Tony harassing Matt, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't entertaining or that he didn't want to hear Matt's response.
"He didn't shoot up a hospital. He was going after a single target who happened to be in the hospital- I'm sure you can read the police report on that with all your infinite resources. And he didn't kill Reyes either," Matt says, his words slightly clipped.
"You got proof about the DA thing?" Tony asks, genuinely curious. "Everything I read pinned it on Castle."
Matt gives Tony a look. "The person who shot Reyes threatened to kill her daughter. Frank Castle would never do that. And there were two shooters; Castle works alone."
"Two shooters? Jesus, you sound like a conspiracy theorist," Tony says in his accidentally inflammatory manner.
"No, I sound like someone who was close enough to Reyes that when the shooting started, I got bloody. I know what two guns sound like; I'm blind, not deaf."
Peter's having trouble not laughing at the tension between Matt and Tony. He knows why Matt has some underlying hostility towards Tony, but neither May nor Tony does. He's recording the whole conversation on his phone to share with the group chat later. Despite how positively dumb Tony's being at the moment, he's still a genius, and if Matt keeps up the growling for another second then Tony's going to recognize it
" Hey Mr. Stark," Peter blurts out to try and resolve the tension. "Matt's the one who's taking Spatula once the kittens are old enough to get adopted."
That sparks a much more light-hearted conversation for the next half hour before Matt says he has to leave. Tony checks the time on a watch that probably costs as much as the entire apartment and says he should get going too. He offers to give Matt a ride back, and, surprisingly, Matt accepts the offer.
Peter loses it once they both leave, ribs aching. May gives him another strange look as she starts cleaning up the kitchen and sends him to lay back down on the couch. While laying there, he finally opens the gift bag that Matt brought and finds an incredibly soft sweater inside. It takes him a few minutes, maneuvering around his injuries to put it on, but once he's wearing it he falls asleep within minutes.