"Hey, Ugly, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Peter shouted as he swung towards the creature. It stopped and actually looked up at him, then roared angrily, its tail thrashing. Peter thought it was probably best to avoid that tail, if it had more in common with scorpions than just appearance. Avoiding close quarters in general was definitely part of his plan. Unfortunately that was as far as his plan went, so far. He had to get that thing away from the civilians it had been knocking out of its way left and right.
He shot some webbing at its more pincer-y hand and anchored himself on a brick corner, pulling hard. "Hey, c'mere! I wanna talk to you!"
The creature stumbled forward, off-balance, and screamed in anger. At least he had its attention though, and it wasn't chasing people at the moment. The webbing didn't seem to slow it down for very long, though.
"Can you just stay still? Seriously, rude. I just wanna talk, stinger-dude!" Peter still had some work to do on the tensile strength of his formula, which was good, but not quite up to whatever weird strength this thing had. He tried webbing up its legs to stop forward movement, but it broke free after 20 seconds or so. It seemed like the carapace parts of it were extra slippery, and it didn't stick as well. Another thing to fiddle with in the web formula.
"If you could be just a little less like… hard and shiny, that'd be great," Peter grunted as scorpion-guy broke free again, despite his double-hand hold on the web-line attached to it. Unlike his organic "stickiness," he already knew his synthetic webs didn't stick to glass as well as they did to something porous like brick or wood. Metal was better, but still—crap, it was moving again. Focus, Parker!
"Oh, sorry! Were you using those eyes for something?" Shooting a web at the monster's face sort of helped, as it stopped moving completely while it scrabbled at the webbing, trying to remove it. It seemed to hold on pretty well to the human-looking skin of its face. So maybe he needed to aim for the more human parts of it?
Peter was taking the precious seconds of incapacitation to try to make a plan when he heard the repulsor whine easily recognized by any native New Yorkers. Apparently the creature was destructive enough that Iron Man had decided to drop in. The police had been having zero luck before Peter showed up, and they weren't that far from the Tower, where he'd been with Mr. Stark just a few hours before, so it tracked that he might check out this train wreck. Iron Man was still a ways above them, but was arrowing down rapidly.
"Buddy, you're in for it now! Mr. Stark does not like people breaking pieces of New York. Ask your space cousins!" he yelled, as he looked for the next good spot to try to aim a web at. The strange creature did share some similarities with a few of the Chitauri guys, now that Peter thought about it.
Mr. Stark landed on the rooftop next to him and quickly appraised the scorpion-guy and then Peter.
"Uh, hey Mr.—uh, Iron Man!" Peter said, affecting a nonchalant attitude and trying to deepen his voice. He leaned hard into the New Yorker accent his parents would probably disown him for. "'Magine seein' you here!"
"Spider-guy, we've been looking for you," Mr. Stark said conversationally. "You in a little over your head here?"
"Oh, this guy?" Peter laughed. "Nah, we're jus' playin' a bit. Why, you bored?"
His bluster quickly dissipated as he scrambled to shoot another few webs at scorpion-guy. He was very close to getting to webbing off his face, but had managed to break his arms and legs free from where Peter had tried to plaster him to the ground. He was pretty sure he could feel Mr. Stark's doubtful stare at his back. Which, fair. He had no idea what he was doing, and was acting purely on instinct and impulse.
Just then, Peter's ears caught the sound of a rapidly approaching motorcycle through the still-screaming people. Iron Man took off and landed on the ground, a few bus-lengths from the angry, flailing monster.
"Whoa, is that the Black Widow, too?" Peter asked rhetorically as he watched the intimidating redhead skid to a stop about 30 feet away from the creature. The Avengers were usually busy, or out of town, and didn't often respond to "normal" emergencies or crime. This was definitely not normal, though, and with two of them, they'd probably have this guy subdued in no time. Should Peter leave them to it? He didn't really want to get cornered into answering questions. And what if Mr. Stark recognized his voice? Ned had mentioned something about a voice changer he thought they could build. Maybe that would be a good idea. It was hard to remember to talk differently.
Peter was getting distracted again, but he was pulled abruptly back into the battle when he saw the slim black figure approaching the scorpion-thing from the opposite side from Mr. Stark. She wasn't planning to get in close, was she? That thing's tail seemed bent on getting some one, and he'd noticed it could move faster than a normal human could. He was (pretty) sure the Ms. Romanoff wasn't enhanced. His spider-warning-system was jangling in earnest.
"Watch out!" he yelled in warning, causing her to pause and look up. But it was too late. Scorpion-guy had pulled the webbing off its eyes and legs, and was jumping towards her with superhuman speed and distance. Could scorpions even jump? Totally unfair.
As the barbed tail moved to strike, Peter desperately shot out a web, which attached firmly (for the moment) to the dangerous-looking appendage. Ms. Romanoff reacted immediately as well, throwing herself to the side behind a car, out of immediate reach.
The creature was angry at being thwarted though, and it spun and roared/screamed at Peter, who had not had time or thought to properly anchor himself this time. The abrupt tug on the web he was holding pulled him from the rooftop he'd been crouched on, the force sending him directly at the monster. Peter tried to send out another web to catch himself, but he was disoriented and narrowly missed the ledge.
He plowed into the creature's chest hard, and it felt like hitting a wall (which he'd done once or twice). Peter felt something in his arm crunch. Then the creature grabbed him and slammed him against the ground, knocking the air out of him. Ouch. It dropped him, but only long enough to back up and aim the nasty-looking stinger at his chest. Peter's spider-sense hadn't stopped screaming since he'd sensed the attack on the Black Widow, but now it compelled him to roll, hard. The stinger hit the ground where he'd been a millisecond before, and the angry growl right above him had Peter scrambling away on his hands and knees. He was in the process of shooting a web to escape when he heard Mr. Stark (well, kind of, through the suit) yell. As he pulled on the web he'd just shot at the wall, he felt something hot sink in just below his knee and it felt like a knife was slicing down his calf as he shot away (unfortunately, he'd also experienced that sensation).
He quickly crawled up the new wall to the top and collapsed over the edge. He sat up and tried to get a look at the back of his leg. It hurt like crazy and felt all jangly. Crap. As he'd suspected, the stinger had punched through his bodysuit, and there was a long cut down the back of his leg. How was he supposed to fix that? It didn't look too bad, though. He was aware of sounds of a rapid-fire battle down below him, and he got up on his knees to look over the lip of the roof. Mr. Stark and Ms. Romanoff seemed to be close to subduing the crazy half-scorpion, and he sounded pretty angry about it. Ms. Romanoff had some weird weapon she'd fired at him that was using electricity, kind of like an overgrown taser. What if Peter had a way to transfer electricity through web fluid? He could—Peter sat back abruptly, his head spinning a little. The last thing he remembered was the world tilting rudely and making hard contact with the roof.
Meeting the spider-guy in person had been a bit startling. He'd been much smaller than Tony had expected, even though he'd seen footage of him. He'd wondered for a minute if "he" was actually a spider-woman, but the obviously-contrived deep voice didn't have a feminine quality to it, so he was going with the original supposition. Tony hadn't had much time to try to figure probably-him out before the weird villain-of-the-week had demanded their attention.
Things had gone downhill fast. Uncharacteristically, Natasha had underestimated the strength and speed of this thing, and might have been taken out if not for the spider-kid's quick reflexes. Because Tony was pretty sure that's what they were dealing with—a kid, between the size, obvious inexperience, and the quality of the yell he'd let out when the scorpion's tail had jabbed at him. He'd been able to get to safety though, it seemed, so Tony just tried to concentrate on what they were doing so they could wrap things up quickly.
Tony notified SHIELD to schedule an immediate pick-up in case this thing was even stronger than they thought. He was pretty sure a low-level repulsor shot to the head would knock him out for at least a few minutes, though.
Once they knocked the creature (He was definitely a man, or partial man. A mutant? An experiment? Hopefully SHIELD could find out.) unconscious and tied him up, Tony had headed up to the rooftop where Spider-"man" had disappeared. Tony figured he wouldn't be lucky enough to have the young vigilante hanging around for questioning, but he needed to see if he was okay, if possible. How old was the kid? Nineteen? Twenty? Was he in college? How long had he been enhanced?
As he touched down on the roof, though, Tony's heart sank. The baby superhero lay crumpled in a pile, and seemed to be unconscious. Tony got a good look at the back of his leg, and the skin around the puncture area was already a strange purplish color, with an angry line leading down the back of his calf. Tony jumped into action, scooping the kid carefully into his arms. Sheesh, was he even in college yet? With his strength, Tony had assumed he'd be more solid, like Steve, maybe. He blasted off carefully and steered toward Stark Tower.
"FRIDAY, notify Helen's staff that I'm incoming with an unknown poisoning, most similar to scorpion venom. Ask Helen to get to the Tower if she's not on shift, and send someone to SHIELD to collect a sample from the scorpion-guy so she has a chance at an anti-venom. Bruce, too, maybe, if he's close enough to come in. Spider-man was stung, and he's unconscious. Tell Nat to escort the scorpion guy to SHIELD and make sure they allow us to get a sample."
Tony had barely breathed during all of those instructions and he was moving as quickly as he could while carrying someone who wasn't shielded from the chilly night air. The kid stirred slightly in his arms, but didn't wake.
"C'mon, Spider-guy," Tony muttered. "Hang in there."
"Ms. Cho is close and will meet you in medbay," FRIDAY said.
"Great. Some good news." He didn't even know if this kind of thing was in her wheelhouse, but she'd proved herself pretty dang capable in all the weird stuff the Avengers had been throwing at her lately.
He arrived at the Tower's medbay in less than five minutes and settled his red-and-blue bundle on the medical bed.
The kid started moving almost immediately, moaning and thrashing a little bit, and Tony stepped out of the suit and leaned his hands against Spider-man's upper body, trying to keep him down.
"Shh, easy there, buddy. Just hold still for a minute so we can see what we're dealing with."
"Mr. Stark?"
"Uh, yeah, that's me?" The kid seemed really out of it to be aware who he was, especially out of the suit.
"Hurts," Spider-man whimpered.
"Yeah, I know, kid."
"Where does it hurt?" asked the medic.
"My leg. Arm. Back. I'm so sorry, sir. I shouldn't have... I don't know what... Ugh, hurts."
Tony's eyebrows shot into his hair. He didn't know how tough this guy was, but apparently the way the scorpion-thing had thrown him around had done some additional damage, and the kid also seemed pretty out of it.
"FRIDAY, Helen?"
"Here," the doctor said, striding into the room while pulling on exam gloves.
"Who's this?" she asked, stopping short of the bed in confusion.
"Spider-man. A local vigilante. Got banged up a bit and then stung by a weird scorpion-man creature. Probably from earth, but I'm not certain. One of your staff is enroute to get a sample of the venom, hopefully."
She looked pained. "Good. Age?"
"I don't know."
Helen pursed her lips and looked at him disapprovingly. "Any allergies?"
Tony gave her a hopeless shrug. "Spider-man? Are you allergic to anything?"
The kid was starting to move more urgently on the table, and Tony was having a harder time holding him in place. The enhanced strength he'd observed in some of the footage was obvious, and he was worried if the kid got any more upset he might have to suit back up.
The vigilante didn't answer, but was whimpering something unintelligible. They couldn't see his eyes, but Tony would bet they were closed.
"I'm going to need to remove all that stuff on his face," Helen said. "We need to know what we're dealing with here, and he's going to need treatment. We can't do any of it safely through all that."
Tony sighed. Yes, he'd wanted to know Spider-man's identity, but not like this. Not when the kid was basically going to be exposed to everyone present without his agreement, and possibly even without his knowledge. He glanced around at the people in the room. There were quite a few.
"Can we clear the room first?"
Helen looked firmly into his eyes. "Mr. Stark, everyone currently in this room has not only signed your airtight NDA's, but I personally know and trust each of them. I need my team for something like this."
"You're right," he admitted. "You hear that, people? None of this leaves this room."
They all met his eyes and nodded firmly.
"Okay, let's take it off," he said, resigned.
He loosened the kid's dark blue hood and Helen pulled it back.
"Hey, buddy?" he asked, trying to reach a fully conscious part of the guy. "We need to take your mask off so we can help you. You're not doing so hot. Is that okay?"
Spider-man stilled under his hands. "Mr. Stark?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"It hurts. Burns. Help? I'm so sorry! I—"
"Kid, can we take the mask off?" Tony asked again, hoping for some kind of consent.
"Oh. My mask?" He sounded more coherent all of a sudden. "I'm sorry. I… yeah, it's okay," he said, sounding like he was actually crying now. Why did he keep apologizing? Spider-man wiggled his arm from where Tony was holding it, and he reluctantly released him. Spider-man reached up to help push the goggles up, and Helen helped him pull the mask off. Tony staggered a little as familiar features appeared. His soft brown hair was a scrambled mess, and his face was tear-streaked and contorted in pain, but this was no college student. Wide, scared eyes blinked at the light and then locked onto his.
"Peter?"
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark. I should've told you; I—"
"Helen, he's fourteen." Tony's could hear his voice break.
The young doctor kept her composure, but Tony thought she paled a little.
"You know this boy?"
"He's my intern," Tony said. "But I didn't know about this."
"Any allergies, Peter?" Helen asked steadily. The boy seemed more with it than he'd been since they'd arrived, and his eyes didn't leave Tony's, pleading for forgiveness, or understanding, or something.
"I used to have some, but I don't think I'm allergic to stuff anymore?" he said softly. He sounded exhausted.
"Your enhancements: born with them, or more recent? Can you tell me what they are, at least as they might pertain to your injuries?"
Tony was also eager to hear that information. Did the Parkers know? They worked in cross-species genetics. Surely they hadn't—
"Bitten by a spider in my parents' lab," he said quietly. "A few months ago."
"Accident, or on purpose?" Tony clipped, trying to contain his anger and worry.
"Accident. It wasn't supposed to be out, I'm sure," Peter said.
Tony let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.
"He's a minor; we need to call his parents," Helen said firmly, as she started checking all of Peter's vitals.
"NO!" he shouted, sitting up hard on the table.
"Pete, just calm down," Tony said, pushing him gently back down. The boy let himself be manipulated, but his pain-pinched face had an added layer of what looked like fear.
"Mr. Stark, you can't tell them," he said urgently. "If they knew about me, I don't think—I don't know—I just feel really, really bad about that idea, and I'm afraid they'd want to run a bunch of tests, and… Sir, they can't know!"
Helen looked taken aback. "Peter, are you safe at home?" she asked quietly.
"Probably? Maybe? I don't know!" he said sadly, pulling away to try to curl onto his side. But he hissed in pain and returned to his supine position.
"What hurts, Peter?" Helen asked.
"My back. It feels wrong. And my arm. Please don't call my parents, ma'am! I heal fast; they don't have to know!" he laid his head back wearily and his brows scrunched in pain.
Helen shared a sharp look with Tony. "You know his parents?"
"Richard and Mary Parker. I… have my concerns."
She nodded briskly, seeming ready to proceed with treatment for now.
"The healing, what are we talking about?" she asked Peter.
"Cuts, scratches, bruises, and stuff. Gone within a couple hours," Peter said softly. "Think I broke my finger last week, but it was okay the next day," he reported. "I don't have, like, super skin or bones or anything, though. I can still get hurt. A guy got me with a knife the other day."
Tony hesitantly reached out and laid a hand lightly on the kid's hair. The intensity of the pain was making him sweat, and Tony brushed a few fingers along the boy's temple as an attempt at comfort. Peter clenched his eyes, and tears escaped slowly down the side of his face, but Tony felt him lean into the touch, so he kept his hand there. He had only known this kid for a couple months, but his heart clenched horribly seeing him hurting so much. And seeing how scared he was of his own family.
"That's quite evident. We might need to get him in for some x-rays while we're waiting for that venom sample. What are you feeling from your leg, Peter? If we support you, do you think we can roll you on your side? I'm worried about your back, but I'm a little more worried about that puncture wound." Helen was concerned, which made Tony nervous. She was usually pretty stoic. But the scorpion's venom was a huge unknown factor.
"Feels… tingly. Felt like it was shocking me. Hurts a lot. Stinging. Burning." Peter's eyes rolled a little, and he shivered.
"So similar to actual scorpion venom, maybe, but on a larger scale," Helen murmured to herself. "Any pain in your neck, Peter?"
"No?"
"Can you feel all your fingers and toes?"
He blinked at her for a moment, then processed what she said, and wiggled them. "Yeah. Everything feels kinda tingly and twitchy though," he complained.
She gestured to two of her medics. "Come help stabilize the spine while we roll him a quarter turn so I can get a better look at that calf.
The medics carefully turned him, and Tony crouched down next to the boy's face. The movement obviously hurt him, but he looked like he was trying hard not to make noise. What needed to happen here? Tony had spent very little time around kids in general, but quite a bit around Peter, lately, and he wanted to do something to ease his discomfort, if possible.
Acting on instinct, he leaned his forehead in and pressed it against Peter's, carefully cupping the back of his head. He had some memory of the Jarvises doing that to him a few times when he was hurting, though it was more emotional than physical, if he remembered correctly. And Pepper did that sometimes, right? It always felt good, like she really cared.
Peter seemed to appreciate the contact, and they stayed like that while Helen carefully inspected his calf. Peter was having a harder time staying still again, with her prodding lightly at the wound, and his limbs seemed kind of twitchy in general. They rolled him gently back to his back.
"It feels hard to breathe," he complained. Tony and Helen both watched him carefully. His breathing rate was definitely faster than it had been when he came in.
"What does it feel like?" Helen asked.
"Just… can't get a good breath," he said.
"The venom sample is on its way," FRIDAY interrupted. "But SHIELD is also performing its own analysis, in case they can get you some results faster."
"That's sort of good news," Helen said tightly. "But if we act on the supposition that it's traditional scorpion venom, he got a mega dose, and his body is starting to respond in a way that makes me nervous. Greta, do we have Anascorp in stock?"
Her assistant rushed to the computer as FRIDAY took the initiative and responded, "We do, Dr. Cho. About three doses."
Helen's face relaxed a bit. "That's the most commonly used scorpion anti-venom. Let's do a dose of that proactively and see if it helps at all." She tilted her head to the side. "What I don't understand is how that super-sized dose hasn't already killed him. Go get it, please." Her assistant hurried out of the room.
"Might not work," Peter slurred, moving his head slightly under Tony's fingers.
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Stuff doesn't work on me anymore. Medicines. Tried Advil a few times an'it didn' really work. Same with benadryl, cause i' used to knock me out, an' I was curious. Nothin'." He was slurring his words more, and he hadn't opened his eyes for any of that.
"He's superpowered, Helen. Think he's like Cap, and needs bigger or different doses?"
"I'm almost certain that's the case, but we can't exactly run any safe experiments right now," she said, sounding quite angry at the very existence of enhanced individuals who she couldn't treat as safely as she wanted. "We'll try the one dose, and see if we can do anything for your pain. Ever had morphine, Peter?"
"Don' know."
"Well, we'll try a normal dose of that, too, and see if it makes any dent in the pain. When we can get that under control we'll clean that wound and do x-rays. Frank? Run an IV in the uninjured arm. I want that Anascorp when it arrives, followed by a low dose of morphine, and track his breathing very carefully." Her people jumped to obey, and Helen pulled firmly at Tony's sleeve.
Tony patted Peter's arm carefully. "I'll be right back, Pete." He followed Helen just outside the door.
"Mr. Stark, even though he's an enhanced individual, I'm quite uncomfortable treating him without his parents' knowledge or consent. They should know. And legally, they have to."
"I understand that, Helen. He obviously thinks he'd be unsafe if they had that knowledge, though, and I have a bad feeling that he's correct. Surely that has to come into our decision-making process," he argued. "And you know I won't let anything happen to you legally," he added.
"But it's still wrong," she said, eyebrows pulled together. "What's the plan? They're going to find out. He has some serious injuries. What happens when he doesn't come home tonight? They're going to be looking for him. I'm going to try my hardest to figure out the right doses for him, but things could go seriously sideways, and he might be here for some time." She tilted her head to the side. "I repeat, what is your plan?"
"I don't know," he breathed, hands rubbing roughly at his eyes. None of this was on his bingo card today, and he felt completely blindsided.
Probably time to call Pepper.
