The pain was nearly blinding just from standing on his shaking legs as warm blood pooled from in between his fingers and onto the sidewalk of the Manhattan alley he was currently standing on, his back firmly pressed against the side of an apartment complex.

He tried to inhale, to catch his breath, but his vision went white and he nearly doubled over from how he could feel his ribs rattle against his chest, his body screaming in agony.

'You just gotta get to your apartment, then you can sleep through the worst of it.' He managed to form a coherent thought as he leaned back against the cold, brick apartment behind his head.

His apartment, where his mattress was sunken in, the shower water was always too cold and there was a package of ramen in the cabinet if he was lucky, was at least five miles from where he currently was if not further, and he could barely pull away from the brick wall without falling to his knees.

'There's gotta be somewhere else. Think, Spider-Man.'

But with the spell that had been cast six months ago, no personal relationships were spared and the Avengers Compound, where the doctors there could easily care for the enhanced, was over two hours away. It'd be easier to get to his apartment.

But just when he had resigned himself to bleeding out in the alleyway, a name came to mind who was still very familiar with Spider-Man.

'No, he's still grieving,' he argued with himself as he clicked the button on his web shooters which shot a web directly onto the bleeding wound on his left side, trying to buy himself some time, 'I should leave him be.'

But, he was desperate and going to slowly bleed out otherwise; so he did what any sane superhero would do.

Followed the Google Maps GPS to the location of Tony Stark's old bodyguard and prayed that the makeshift bandage didn't come off with the force of swinging through the air.

…

Happy hadn't been sleeping well since his girlfriend died.

Granted, she was his ex and it had only been a few months of a relationship before their breakup happened, but they had still spent so much time together and she had even moved in at one point.

Not that he could remember why she had moved in exactly, something about Stark Tech going missing and used badly seemed right, but they had connected more in the months leading up to her death then when they were dating.

"Their summer fling" she would refer to it as, the words sliding off her tongue like a melody as they bonded over cheesy movies from their teenage years and busted cars that had to be fixed up and made into something new.

But when she died, his arms behind his back as he was pulled out of his car by the feds, he hadn't been there with her; instead, he had been telling someone to run, someone else who had been there with her as she took her final breath.

The gaps in his memory, those months with May, were the main reason he hadn't been sleeping well; he wanted to remember every single thing about every moment he had been with her so maybe coping with the loss wouldn't be so hard and painful.

So, instead of lying in his bed with his C-Pap machine on his face, he was in his living room and trying to recall the night he had lost her when he heard a thud against his bathroom window.

He was willing to brush it off and assume it was a bird that had flown into his window before he heard another thud that was softer, almost like a knock.

Happy stood up and grabbed his gun that had been sitting on the coffee table, too exhausted to put it away when he got home from work, before slowly approaching his bathroom.

The door handle was cold as he gripped it and turned it slowly, returning both of his hands to his pistol as soon as he could nudge the door open with his hip, but when he was in the bathroom and could see it in its entirety, there wasn't an intruder anywhere to be seen.

Just a red, spandex clad hand against the window, soaked in fresh, crimson blood.

He jumped into action immediately; he had a vague memory of patching up Spider-Man before and images of a vibrant field of multiple colored tulips came to mind, but he remembered that being desperate.

'There's blood on your window, this is pretty desperate.'

He slid the window open, feeling the grimy dust on the sill on his fingertips as he slowly helped the masked vigilante inside before shutting it behind him and quickly washing the dust off as he watched him breathe quickly and heavily with a hand wrapped tightly around his side where the blood was coming from.

"Spider-Man? What happened?" He questioned as he pulled the first aid kit out from under the bathroom sink.

"Bad fight, but I beat them pretty good," the cough that came from his lips and the wet noise that sounded too much like blood that came with it cut him off, "they look worse than me."

Happy nodded as he slowly reached a hand towards the mask, knowing it'd be better if he had a more clear airway and if he could tell if he was breathing, but Spider-Man jumped, his hands ready to punch when he got too close.

"Don't touch the mask."

"Okay, I won't" Happy raised his hands in surrender because he needed time to relax so he could keep him from bleeding out on his bathroom floor, "Can you lift it above your mouth and nose though? It's a little hard for me to see if you're breathing with it on."

The silence that filled the room was almost deafening as Spider-Man seemingly pondered how safe it was for him to do what he was told and Happy busied himself with threading the surgical needle; but after a few tense minutes passed, the vigilante used their hands and lifted the mask just above their nose, smearing blood on their face in the process.

But he just pressed his hand back to their side and muttered "gross" under his breath before letting out another deep, wet cough.

Happy swallowed back his fear from seeing their blood stained lips and grabbed an antiseptic wipe, trying to remember what he had done at least twenty years ago when Tony had nearly been brained by a stiletto shoe.

"Spider-Man, this is gonna sting."

He removed his bloody hand from the gaping hole in his side and gripped onto the claw foot bathtub instead; Happy took the hint and started to clean the wound, hearing the sharp inhale and feeling the vigilante flinch under his touch.

The terrifying thought of 'what's gonna happen when you get to the actual stitches' flared up in his mind, but he pushed it away and tried to think of a way to distract the injured vigilante on his bathroom floor whose breathing made him worried that he was about to pass out.

"So, does Spider-Man have a favorite movie?" He kicked himself for the stupid question, but the flinching wasn't so violent as they responded.

"S-Star Wars. A New Hope."

Happy couldn't help but think of Morgan from the response he was given and offered him a smile as he threw the antiseptic pad away and grabbed the surgical needle before responding, "that's my niece's favorite too."

"W-what about you?"

"I'm partial to Men In Black," he told him while sliding the needle through the broken skin, the sharp inhale nearly brought tears to his eyes, "but my girlfriend really liked Maid in Manhattan."

'Why am I crying? I don't even know who's under this mask.'

"S-so does my aunt," the response sounded really shaky in between the sharp breaths and it made Happy's stomach turn, "it's her favorite."

But before Happy could say anything else, his head lolled to the side and he had obviously passed out.

'Maybe that's good,' he told himself as he tied off the last stitch before examining the bruising he could see through the ripped spandex that was once the famous red and blue suit, 'now he's not in pain.'

Luckily, now that Spider-Man wasn't trying to put on a brave face and bleeding out, his breathing had evened out quite a lot, so it was very unlikely that a lung had been punctured during the fight where he had received the injuries, so Happy carefully lifted him off of his bathroom floor and brought him into the spare room before laying him down on the mattress.

He pulled the remains of the suit off to either try and salvage or throw out tomorrow before tucking the half masked vigilante under the covers and set a shirt and pants on the dresser for when he eventually awoke and set the phone that he had found on the nightstand.

But before he left, he reached his hand forward, half expecting Spider-Man to jolt awake as his hand brushed the fabric over his face; but he didn't and soon, the mask was off, revealing a man, more like a boy, who couldn't be older than twenty one, with curly brown hair and pale skin that was almost illuminated by the pink scratches on his right cheek.

'I know him,' he realized while stepping slowly out of the room, shutting off the light on the way out, 'I know that kid, but why don't I know his name?'

Now that the time was nearing four in the morning and he had to start the drive to the compound at seven thirty, Happy knew there was no chance of getting sleep until a nap on his lunch break and he was tempted to call out of work due to the injured vigilante in his spare room, but he shook the idea off quickly, opting to make some chicken noodle soup instead.

He wasn't sure what one should give someone who had been stabbed, but with how skinny and worn he had looked while he was patching him up, god knew he could use the nutrients to ward off any chance of infection.

As soon as the vegetables he had cut up started to simmer in the pot with the broth, however, his phone let out it's small ping noise, alerting him of the text that had just been sent and when he pulled his phone from his pocket, he saw the text under the contact labeled "Spider-Man".

He opened it to see the text that read, "can't get up and I'm naked" followed shortly by "I told you not to take off my mask."

Happy turned the heat to low on the stove, but before he made his way into the spare room, he noticed the message above Spider-Man's distress message which had been sent by his phone six months prior.

"I'm on my way, Peter. Don't make any rash decisions."

"Who the hell is-" he was cut off by a sharp, blinding pain in his skull that nearly brought him to the floor before everything just…clicked.

"Is this your first time on a private plane?" "First time on any plane."

"Can I please just talk to mister Stark?" "Just stay away from anything too dangerous, I'm responsible for making sure you're responsible."

"I don't think Tony would have done what he did, if he didn't know you were gonna be here after he was gone. Now, you're all alone, your friends are in danger, your tech is missing. What are you gonna do about it?" "I'm gonna kick his ass."

"Hang up. There's no new ground being broken, I need my eight hours, Hang up." "Have you been listening this whole time?"

"Peter! Run! RUN!"

Happy pulled himself to his feet, his hands still shaking; it hadn't been PTSD or some sort of early onset disease. He had forgotten Peter. The lively boy that was Tony's protege, whose rambling voicemails were always endearing even when Happy was annoyed, who spoke so highly of Star Wars that he had gotten Morgan just as obsessed before she had graduated first grade. The boy he stitched up and consoled hovering over a tulip field while still coping with his own grief

The boy who was May's whole world and by proxy, became his; and he had forgotten every single memory he had of him. He couldn't focus on anything else until another text came in.

"You okay? I'd check myself, but I can't get up."

Happy had forgotten Peter, but he now had his chance to make up for it; and he was going to try his hardest to do just that.

…

'Get out get out get out-' Peter sat up straight in the bed that was much softer than his before recoiling from the stinging pain that had shot up his body; he slowly laid down as he caught his breath, his left hand ghosting over his side as he tried to think.

Everything was still foggy, most likely from blood loss from the stabbing that was vivid in his memories, but as he forced himself to focus on thinking to distract himself from the pain.

'I went to Happy,' he remembered before noticing that he was no longer wearing his suit nor his mask, 'he took it off. He's seen my face, he's gonna get hurt now.'

Peter took a deep breath as he slowly sat up, the stitches pulling and his ribs aching as he did, but he managed to get himself up; he wanted to get up and leave, but just sitting up had already been close to a workout for him, his body aching and his skin was sheen with a thin layer of sweat.

He couldn't move, and with how much his chest ached, he couldn't call out to Happy because he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, so he reached for the nightstand and with a shaking hand, unlocked it to send Happy a text.

"can't get up and I'm naked", before typing out a second one, "I told you not to take off my mask." and with that, he laid back down with his phone resting on his chest and tried to keep his eyes from fluttering shut until he had more clothes on.

However, after a few moments, he heard a loud thud in the kitchen; he tried to get up, but his side throbbed horrendously, sending him to his back so he resorted to typing out another message. "You okay? I'd check myself, but I can't get up."

'That's not gonna do anything if he got attacked.' he told himself, but he brushed that thought off when the door opened with Happy on the other side, his breaths heavy.

"Hey, you took my clothes," Peter's voice was raw and hoarse, but he was more concerned about the tears in Happy's eyes and couldn't help but speculate that there was someone holding a gun to Happy's head, "are you okay?"

"Peter, I remember."

He could have sworn that his heart stopped because Doctor Strange had said that no one would remember him and he had lived with that for the past six months, but here was Happy, his face obviously grateful while simultaneously guilty and telling him that he remembered him.

When he finally managed to use his tongue again to form words, they were shaky at best and he couldn't stop the overwhelming tears from forming in his eyes when his rough voice made it's way out.

"Y-you do?"

The next thing Peter knew, he was engulfed in a hug, something Happy had never done; he let it happen though with one thought in his mind.

'This is nice.'

The tears didn't stop after that; it didn't help that Happy had a hand running through his greasy hair and murmured over and over again; "I remember you, I remember."; if it hadn't been for the throbbing in his side, he could have stayed like that all day.

But, Peter pulled away from his shoulder and wiped his wet face on his wrist before speaking again, "so, I kinda need those clothes."