The Easy Way or the Hard Way

Peter stared down at the knife sticking out of his shoulder and sighed, dropping his head back against the brick wall he'd been leaning on and swearing so viciously May would have crossed herself and grounded him. Not that May didn't swear…she did. All the time. But combining 'Jesus Christ' and 'motherfucker' would definitely have put him on her shit list for at least a week. She would have demanded to know if that was how 'That Tony Stark' talked around him, when in fact, the worst thing he'd ever heard Mr. Stark say was a soft, muttered, 'dammit' when he'd dropped a screw under his table for the fourth time while trying to assemble the robot he and Peter had been working on.

May liked Mr. Stark more now than when she'd first met him…and a lot more than when she'd first discovered Peter's vigilante activities that had been 'aided and abetted' by 'That Tony Stark' but she was still wary of him. Peter had given up on trying to convince her. Eight whole months had passed. He had an internship and a literal room in the man's new tower which he spent weekends at so that Peter didn't have to commute all the way out to the Compound on Fridays for said internship. And half the time, Peter stayed the night since they went late and Mr. Stark didn't want him to have to swing home in the dark, even though Peter patrolled after dark all the time (not that he ever used that argument which was 100% guaranteed to both fail and get him in trouble.

It was both mid-summer and mid-week, so Mr. Stark was out at the Avengers Compound and May was working a double, leaving him to his own devices all day. Well…his own devices were mostly summer work, reading for his internship, a book he needed to have read for English the following year that he was slowly making his way through, and hanging out with Ned. And patrolling. May had sat him down at the beginning of the summer to set up some rules for him, the breaking of which would make him lose his privilege of patrolling. They were pretty reasonable, at least. He had to have his chores done first. His curfew was 10pm. And if he got hurt or got in over his head, he had to contact either her or 'That Tony Stark.' And so far, he'd done really well. He'd only gotten hurt once, and Karen had immediately snitched to Friday, and Mr. Stark had been there in less than half an hour.

He'd been a little irritated…it had been a minor gunshot wound. The bullet had only grazed him, unlike the one currently lodged in his calf, and the bleeding had stopped after only about ten minutes. Now, though, he really could have used Karen's tendency to snitch. Only one problem: he wasn't in the suit. He'd been on his way to Ned's. His phone was dead (he'd planned to charge it at Ned's). Thankfully he still had his webshooters, since he always carried those, so he'd webbed up the guy attempting to mug him, but not before the guy's buddies had come crawling out of the woodwork, one with a knife and one with a baseball bat. At least the baseball bat had only given him a killer headache while he'd been fumbling with his webshooters, hesitating because he hadn't wanted to give his identity away.

In the end, he'd waited until they were unconscious before he'd webbed them up, and, leaning against the brick wall, he pondered his choices. Did he want to do this the easy way or the hard way? The easy way would be to swing to Mr. Stark's tower, which was only a few miles away, and go inside and try and fix himself up. The hard way would be to go into the nearest convenience store and ask to use their phone while also trying to convince the owner of said phone not to call an ambulance, considering he was bleeding and had a literal knife sticking out of him.

Swearing again, he pressed his hands to the brick and started to climb, wincing every time he had to move his leg. The knife in his shoulder hurt, but not nearly as bad as the hole in his leg. The bullet was still in there, which wasn't ideal, but he decided not to think about digging it out until he had to. Instead, he reached the top floor of the building, put out his good arm, and starting the trek to Mr. Stark's new place. There was a medbay there, at least, and probably at least one doctor that knew who he was and wouldn't tell anyone. But he figured he could probably just take care of it in his bathroom. He knew where the cleaning supplies was. He'd also need to plug his phone in so that he could text Ned and let him know that he'd be late.

But Ned had just gotten a LEGO model of the old Avengers Tower, complete with Avengers minifigures, and he had no intention of missing out on building it.

It took nearly twenty minutes for him to reach the new tower, mostly because he kept having to stop and catch his breath, which was kind of concerning, but another thing he didn't want to think about. Thanking the (sometimes) merciful universe that he always kept his badge in his wallet, Peter snuck around to the back of the building, swiped his pass, and then headed straight for Mr. Stark's private elevator. Looking down once he entered the plushly carpeted elevator, he realized he was leaving a trail of blood and winced. He gave the security camera in the corner a sheepish smile, mouthing 'sorry, Mr. Stark,' and resolving to help the cleaning staff get it all up. They were all really nice and blood was probably hard to get out of nice carpet.

He stumbled a little once he reached the penthouse, which was fully furnished despite the fact that Mr. Stark only lived there on the weekends. But Peter was glad for that as he made his way into his bedroom, then into his attached bathroom, then dropped onto the floor. He'd meant to sit down, but it had been more of a controlled fall. But that was okay because the first aid kit was underneath the bathroom cabinet, and he was at the perfect level to reach it. He had to slide himself out of the way to open the door, which hurt like a motherfucker, something he hissed under his breath as he pushed himself far enough away to get it open.

"Peter? I have contacted Mr. Stark and he wants me to let you know that there are no doctors currently in the medbay, but that he is on his way in the armor, and that he called for a doctor that knows about your mutation to come. He also said 'Tell Peter not to pull out the goddamned knife, for the love of fuck.'"

"Copy that," Peter muttered, hating that Mr. Stark was going to be worried. And maybe mad, although this hadn't been his fault. He'd just been walking to Ned's. It wasn't his fault that the local robber population was active at 6pm, a full three hours before dark. It wasn't like he'd had anything worth stealing, minus the webshooters. His wallet had a whole six dollars in it.

Pouring alcohol over the tweezers he'd grabbed from the first aid kit, Peter gritted his teeth and ripped the leg of his pants wide enough to see the bullet wound. This was always his least favorite part, but he'd done it twice before (both times before he'd met Mr. Stark) and he had googled it enough times that he liked to think he was pretty good at removing bullets from his person. Sticking the tweezers in, he groaned, gasping as tears ran involuntarily down his face, but this, he told himself, was fine. It was fine. It hadn't nicked anything too important and less than three minutes of digging and sweating and bleeding later, he had caught the slippery little bastard and pulled it out of his leg, dropping both the bullet and the tweezers onto the floor beside him with a soft 'clink.'

It hurt. God it hurt. He wiped shakily at his face with his free hand, trying to brush away the tears he hadn't meant to shed. He was a superhero. He did stuff like this all the time. He'd just stopped three criminals. Why was he crying? He pulled the open first aid kit closer with a hand that refused to stop shaking, struggling to keep his mind focused on the task at hand. He had a list…stop the bleeding in his leg, get the knife out, stop the bleeding there.

No…Mr. Stark had told him not to pull the knife out. Right?

"Peter!"

He jerked to attention, looking from the first aid kit to the man who'd seemed to materialize in the doorway, and realized he must have zoned out for a minute…or a few. Or…had he passed out? His head was resting against the bathroom cabinet and a glance at his watch told him that at least fifteen minutes had passed since he'd sat on the bathroom floor, which was concerning.

"How'd you know I was here?" he asked, concerned at how his voice slurred.

"Friday alerted me that you were here, and all I had to do was follow the goddamned blood trail!"

"Oh…right." He remembered that. Friday had told him that Mr. Stark was coming. And a doctor too. "Sorry. I'll clean it up."

"I don't care about the fucking blood, Parker!" Mr. Stark snapped, but his hands were shaking as he dropped to his knees and held a cloth to Peter's leg, and something in his face made Peter think he wasn't actually angry. "Jesus, did you try to dig the bullet out yourself?"

"No," Peter told him with a smug smile, pointing to the tweezers and the tiny metal bullet on the floor beside him. "I did dig the bullet out myself."

Mr. Stark stared at him, incredulous. "I…what could you possibly…" He shook his head then, voice going soft and serious. "Nope. Later. We need to get you to the elevator…you're losing too much blood. I have to get you to the medbay. The doctor is on his way. Fucking New York traffic. Now. Come on. I'll help you."

Peter nodded, thinking that was probably a good idea, then, ignoring Mr. Stark's hand, he grabbed the bathroom sink and used it to jump up…

And then he was flat on the floor and Mr. Stark was swearing even more and yelling for Friday only Peter wasn't entirely sure why. The yelling was making his headache worse though, so Peter tried to press his hands to his ears, but his limbs were oddly unresponsive. "Huh?" he settled for asking, feeling like his clothes were wet and not sure why. "Is…there water on the floor?" he asked, opening his eyes and wincing at the harsh overhead lighting in the bathroom. Had he turned the sink on?

"No! There is not water on the floor. There is blood on the floor! Your blood! All of your blood, apparently. Jesus fucking Christ, Peter…" Mr. Stark's voice broke and he pressed down hard on Peter's leg, then something ripped and he tied something tight around his leg right below his knee. "Okay…you're okay. They're almost here. Just…"

When Peter managed to drag his eyes open, realizing suddenly that he'd closed them, he was shocked to see Mr. Stark with his own eyes closed tight, something wet on his face. "Mr. Stark?" His eyes snapped open then, red-rimmed and too bright, and Peter didn't understand until suddenly he did. "Don't…don't be sad. It's okay. I'm fine. I didn't pull the knife out," he tried to reassure him, words so hard to form and they didn't sound right…why couldn't he talk right?

"Yeah, thank Christ for that," Mr. Stark whispered, resting a shaking hand on Peter's hair. "You can't do this to me, Pete. You…"

"My phone was…dead," he tried to explain, eyes so heavy he almost couldn't keep them open but Mr. Stark was sad and he couldn't stand that. "I'm sorry. I…"

"It's okay. You're okay. You…Pete…please…stay awake, okay? Please…"

Peter tried…and he was pretty sure he succeeded. He was only going to close his eyes for a second. But then he blinked and everything was different…he was laying in a bed and he was wearing different clothes and his shoulder ached and so did his leg. Groaning, he tried to sit up, but Mr. Stark appeared as if out of thin air, a hand on his shoulder keeping him flat on his back.

"No way, Spiderling. You're grounded. Literally. Bed rest."

"What?"

"Forever. Jesus, kiddo…"

Peter looked around the room until it hit him…he was in the medbay. "Did I fall asleep?"

"Did…yeah…" Mr. Stark nodded, a little too hard. "Yeah, you fell asleep. About half of your blood is currently on my bathroom floor, Pete. You…I almost…" He wiped a hand over his face, then rested a hand on Peter's hair, brushing it back and looking so afraid it hurt Peter to see. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Just sore."

"You were shot. You were stabbed twice. You had a concussion."

"Wait...twice?"

"You didn't notice the literal knife sticking out of you?"

"No, I knew about that one…"

"They got you in the side too…not as bad. Probably didn't hurt as much as the bullet in your leg."

That did help explain all of the blood.

"You left a trail all the way from the scene where three men were found unconscious and webbed to the ground to my bathroom, Goldilocks."

That took Peter a minute to figure out, then he shook his head. "Hansel and Gretel. Goldilocks was the one that broke into the bears' house and criticized their furniture. I would never criticize your furniture."

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes, but he was almost smiling, so Peter counted it as a win. "You scared me to death, Peter. I thought you were going to die on that floor."

"It wasn't that bad…"

"It was. It was that goddamn bad. I…I didn't know if the doctor was going to get to my floor in time. I couldn't get the bleeding to stop."

Peter lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry I scared you."

He sighed. "I know, bud. Just…try to keep your phone charged, okay? In fact, I'm getting you a new phone. Two new phones. That way, one will always be charged. And a new watch. One that you can use to call me."

"I didn't want to go to a convenience store to use their phone or something…I knew they'd call an ambulance." And if they'd called an ambulance, of course, then doctors would know about his mutation and then they'd know about Spider-Man.

Mr. Stark nodded. "Probably. But it's okay if that happens. I'll figure it out. Just…please don't bleed out on my bathroom floor, okay? It's never coming out of the grout."

Peter grinned. You got it. I'll bleed out in the kitchen next time."

Mr. Stark chuckled, shaking his head and ruffling Peter's hair. "That's the spirit."

Mr. Star was still smiling when Peter suddenly remembered what he'd been forgetting. "May! Did you call May?"

"Of course I called May. I told her you were fine…played it down. I didn't even tell her about the gunshot wound. Don't worry. She's coming over after her shift. I promised her that I would take care of you and that you'd stay in bed for the rest of the day." Before Peter could ask, Mr. Stark went on. "I also plugged your phone in and called Ted. He'd called you five times. I told him that you'd gotten hurt but that you're fine and that you'd call him."

Peter deflated, sighing in relief. "Thanks."

"Anytime, kid. You want something to eat?" Peter gave him a sheepish smile and he snorted. "Yeah, should have guessed the answer to that one. Thai? Chinese?"

"Indian?"

"You got it."

Peter did stay in bed the rest of the day, but it was made bearable by Mr. Stark's presence at his side, the two of them eating takeout and watching movies on the wall mounted TV. And when he left the tower the next day with May, it was with two new Stark phones, three mobile charging banks, and a watch with both a tracker and a panic button, as promised.