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With a grunt, Sam stumbled onto the sand. His waterlogged clothes - not to mention the hundred and fifty pound teenager strewn lifelessly over his shoulder - weighed him down. He dropped the kid onto the ground and fell beside him, breath ragged and heaved.
Bucky followed seconds later. On his back, he looked between Sam and Peter, expression the epitome of exhaustion, and sighed.
“Stark’s gonna kill us.”
Sam grit his teeth. “Yeah. No shit.”
Stark had been adamant Peter wasn’t ready to join them on such a high-stakes missions, but they’d needed help, everyone else was tied up, Iron Man was mostly retired – and, at the end of the day, the kid wasn’t really much of a kid anymore. It wasn’t their fault the copter had malfunctioned. It could have happened to anyone, and Peter knew the risks of an offshore mission when he agreed to come along. If anything, Stark should be grateful they’d decided to save Peter instead of their pilot. It hadn’t been all that hard of a decision, but still.
They had taken his kid out of the country against his will and without his knowledge. That probably warranted Stark’s fury, if he was honest.
Bucky, being a super soldier designed for survival, had the sense and strength left to make his way over to Peter and check his vitals. Sam watched, trying to push back the grey haze edging his vision. He could see the kid was breathing if he looked close enough, but that didn’t mean much.
Bucky pressed two fingers pressed to Peter’s wrist and gave him a firm nod. “He’ll be fine.”
“Maybe.” Sam forced himself upright. His neck ached in protest. An hour didn’t seem like such a long time to wade in the ocean, trying to reach the shore you’d missed in your emergency crash landing – until you actually spent an hour wading in the ocean, trying to reach the shore you’d missed in your emergency crash landing. The fact that Peter had been unconscious for the most of that hour wasn’t a huge help.
“They’re probably looking for us already,” Bucky said, even though they both knew they probably weren’t. He glanced at the tide as it rose and splashed another small wave over Peter’s still legs. “We should move more inland. Get away from the sand glare, build a shelter, try and warm the kid up. I don’t think he can thermoregulate.”
Now that Sam was starting to get his bearings back, he saw what Bucky meant. Did the kid’s lips look faintly tinged blue, or was he imagining things? Was it good or bad that he’d stopped shivering about twenty minutes ago? That was bad, right?
Sam stood with a groan. “I’ll warm. You build.”
Bucky frowned. “Why do I have to build?”
“I hate you.”
Thank fuck he knew how to start a fire with the bare essentials. If he didn’t, he might have had to regretfully return a body to Stark rather than a living, breathing nineteen year old, and then he really would kill them.
Also, the kid was kind of starting to grow on him, though he was an insufferably annoying little shit. Losing him…wouldn’t be ideal.
The sun had started to set by the time Bucky finished constructing their lean-to shelter. Peter, still unresponsive, had been maneuvered to where his back was pressed against Sam’s chest, head lolled and jaw slack, as close to the fire as safely possible. Twenty minutes after lighting it, the blue faded from the kid’s lips and he began to tremble minutely. The lack of shivering had definitely been a bad sign, then.
Bucky disappeared for a while without a word, then returned at dusk with an armful of oddly shaped fruit. He held one out to Sam, who eyed it cautiously.
“Just take it.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s debatable,” Sam said, but took a bite anyway. The taste was a little strong, but he wasn’t exactly in any position to complain. When Bucky offered him another, he pushed it away. “You and the kid need more. Your freaky metabolisms.”
Bucky made no protest. He devoured three of the questionable fruits and set four aside for Peter when he woke up.
If he woke up.
Sometime late in the night, Peter did.
Bucky took the first watch to ensure no feral animals attacked the two more weakened members of their party. He shook Sam roughly, hissing something he was way too damn tired to decipher.
Then, Sam felt it: the kid shifted against him and emitted a weak groan. He opened his eyes just in time to see Peter’s flutter, glazed and unfocused.
Sam exhaled audibly. He and Bucky exchanged a look. Maybe Stark would only maim them.
Speak of the devil: “M’ster St’rk?”
Peter’s gaze roamed all over their tiny shelter, dimly lit by the dying fire, as if said man would be found hiding amongst the twig walls. Bucky laid a hand on the kid’s shoulder, drawing his attention.
“Do you remember what happened?” He asked.
Peter paused, then nodded. “Kinda. Crashed?”
“Bingo,” Sam said. “Anything hurt?”
“Head.” The kid coughed harshly. “Ch-chest. Kinda…kinda hard to breathe.”
Bucky frowned. Sam clenched his hands at this sides. He’d hoped Peter hadn’t inhaled too much water before they got to him, but that was stupid. It was a miracle he hadn’t straight-up drowned. Without his healing factor, he would have.
“That’s fine,” Bucky lied smoothly. “We won’t be here much longer.”
The kid’s eyes grew wide. Out of nowhere, he found a renewed strength and fought to sit up straighter, struggling away from Sam’s chest.
“The pilot,” he said urgently. “Where is he? Did he–?”
Bucky pressed his mouth into a grim line as Sam said, “We couldn’t save both of you. There was no time.”
All Peter’s newfound energy drained away at once. He slumped backward again, face the picture of absolute devastation.
“I liked him,” he said weakly. “He was nice.”
“You’re nicer,” Bucky said without missing a beat.
“I was talking to him before we went down. He had a new baby at home. You sh-should…should have…”
Peter dissolved into a brief coughing fit, which was not good but also, in a way, good, because Sam knew exactly where that ‘should have’ was going and he didn’t want to hear it.
He gripped the kid’s arm and shook him lightly. “No the fuck we shouldn’t have.”
Peter didn’t respond. His eyelids fluttered again as he laid his head back, breath a little fragmented for Sam’s liking.
Bucky tapped his jaw. “You wanna eat something before you go back to sleep?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Don’t ask him,” Sam said to Bucky, “tell him. You have to eat something, kid. We can’t afford for your healing to slow down.” He entertained a moment of internal debate before adding, “It’s probably the only thing keeping you alive right now.”
“I’ll throw up.”
Neither of them could argue with that. They wouldn’t be able to move him out of the shelter fast enough if he did vomit.
“Fine,” Bucky relented with a sigh. “You’ve gotta eat in the morning, though.”
“Mhm.”
Sam waited until the kid went lax against him, then looked at Bucky. “I’ll take over. You sleep.”
For a minute, Bucky looked like he wanted to protest, but exhaustion must have won out. “Yeah. Wake me if you need something.”
If Sam spent more time keeping an eye on Peter’s vitals than keeping an eye on their surroundings, that was nobody’s business but his own.
Things got worse before they got better, which was to be expected, but frustrating nonetheless.
When dawn broke, Peter woke for just long enough to nibble his way through two of the fruits reserved for him, sip at some of the freshwater Bucky had found, and claim he felt queasy before checking back out. Even though the sun glared down on them, he still shivered. Sam should have known then that something was wrong.
Around noon, the kid spiked a fever.
It couldn’t have been their water supply. He and Bucky had been drinking it, too. It didn’t taste contaminated, and they both felt fine. Some other kind of infection, then.
Most likely the ocean water in his lungs.
“M’ster St’rk?” The kid asked repeatedly during his brief, delirious stints of consciousness.
“He’ll be here soon.” The lie tasted bitter on Sam’s tongue. He rubbed Peter’s chest as he struggled to cough up water and phlegm.
“Need M’ster St’rk. Please. I need ‘im.”
Sam gripped the kid’s arm tight and clenched his own jaw even tighter. “I know you do. He’ll be here soon.”
They had no way of knowing how bad Peter’s fever was, whether he was getting better or worse or remaining static. It wasn’t like any of them made a habit of carrying thermometers around in their pockets – though, after this, Sam was seriously considering it. The sun heated everything, so their own hands weren’t exactly reliable indicators, either.
At least, that was what Sam told himself. Because if he admitted that his hand was a little bit reliable, he’d have to admit that Peter did feel hotter with every passing hour; that he was undoubtedly getting worse.
“He’ll be here soon,” he repeated like a broken record when Peter roused and cried out for Stark again. It tasted just as bitter every time. “He’ll be here soon.”
During the second evening, there was one heart-stopping moment where Sam believed they really would return a body to Stark.
The kid stopped breathing. Not for long, no more than fifteen or twenty seconds, but long enough to inspire panic in him and Bucky both.
“Sam,” Bucky said desperately when Peter rattled an exhale then went quiet, and lunged forward to grip the kid’s shoulders.
“Shit.” On instinct, Sam wrapped an arm around Peter’s torso and leaned forward. The kid leaned with him bonelessly, chin against his still chest, and Sam pounded a fist against his back.
Peter choked for a moment, then inhaled with an audible gasp. Sam stopped his pounding but remained still, afraid – maybe irrationally so – that returning to an upright position would yield the same unfortunate results. They might not be so lucky a second time around.
“Sam,” Bucky said again. His hands fell hesitantly away from Peter’s shoulders.
“I know.” Sam took a deep breath and felt oddly lucky to have such an ability. “Fuck. I know, man, alright? I know.”
It was decided, after a few cautious rounds of trial and error, that Peter seemed to breathe easiest when lying on his side. Sam removed his shirt to use as a barrier between the kid’s face and the dirt – too fucking hot, anyway, I don’t mind – and kept a hand permanently planted on Peter’s chest, just to make sure.
“Pilot might have sent out a distress signal before we went down,” Bucky offered, but it was weak. If he had, they would already be back at the Compound, taking their epic talking-to from Stark like men, and Peter would be able to breathe.
“Yeah.” Sam laid his head back and sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”
It took Stark a little over two days to find them.
Peter’s condition had continued to decline. Frankly, the kid was all but dead. He looked dead. Only the sluggish pulse beneath Sam’s fingertips and his stuttered, far too audible breaths indicated otherwise. At this point, he couldn’t deny it: his hands were reliable enough to tell him Peter was burning from the inside out. Without medical intervention, he probably only had a few more hours left in him. Five or six, at best.
They heard the Iron Man suit before they saw it, repulsors loud and familiar. He emerged from behind the trees and touched down outside their shelter.
Stark immediately stepped out of the suit, pale and stricken, eyes locked on his kid. “Is he–?”
“Alive,” Bucky said quickly. Sam sat there, silent, hand still pressed against Peter’s chest, so relieved he swore he could feel it in his bones. “Pretty fucked up, though. He…he stopped breathing for a few seconds yesterday.”
“FRIDAY, send my coordinates to the med jet. I found them.”
Then, with a gentleness Sam hadn’t known the man to be capable of, Stark knelt in front of Peter and brushed sweat-matted hair from his face. “Pete? Open your eyes for me, kid.”
Sam and Bucky hadn’t been able to wake him when they wanted, forced to wait until Peter came to on his own to try and get some water in him before he conked out again. Sam opened his mouth to tell Stark as much – but at the sound of his voice, Peter immediately roused.
“M’ster St’rk?”
Stark huffed out a breath of relief, sounding almost amused. His eyes were suspiciously bright. “Yeah, kid. It’s me. You ready to blow this popsicle stand?”
“’S no p’psicles here, M’ster St’rk,” the kid slurred, expression dead-serious. “None.”
Stark feigned shock. “Seriously? On this whole entire uncolonized island? Not one?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“That’s alright. Morgan will share hers with you.”
“Oh. ‘S nice.”
Sam and Bucky stared at each other over Stark’s shoulder, bewildered. Though patently ridiculous, this was the most lucid conversation Peter had managed since the very first time he woke.
A blast of sudden wind shook the trees; an engine roared. Through the foliage, Sam made out the unmistakable form of a jet as it landed on the beach. Several pairs of footsteps crunched over leaves and twigs toward them.
Stark looked at Sam and Bucky.
“Thank you,” he said, and they both blinked in surprise. “I can’t – I don’t know what I would have done if…but you kept him alive. Thank you.”
Up until that very moment, Sam had never seen Stark show the slightest bit of gratitude for anything, ever. He stared for a moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the man to launch into a tirade. Stark didn’t. He instead turned his attention back to Peter, hand stroking his too-hot face, brows furrowed.
“It’s our fault he was out here in the first place,” Sam said finally. “You said he couldn’t go and we took him anyway. He wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for us.”
Stark scoffed. “Clearly, you haven’t gotten to know him yet. You can’t tell this kid anything. I gave it a fifty-fifty he’d actually listen.”
“Then why bother telling him no?” Bucky asked.
“Like I said: fifty-fifty.” Stark smiled bittersweetly as Peter hummed at the comfort of his hand. “He listens when he feels like it. There was a chance.”
“Had to h’lp,” Peter said.
“Shhh. I know you did, Pete. It’s okay.”
Sam thought of their only coherent conversation with the kid, remembered his utter devastation at hearing that a man he’d known for all of two hours had died so he could live, and knew Stark was right. Peter had too damn big of a heart for his own good. Compassion was his biggest strength and his inevitable downfall.
The med team arrived, kits in hand, and shooed Sam and Bucky out of the way as they fussed around the kid. Stark stayed. He murmured platitudes when Peter groaned at all the poking and prodding, held his hand in a vice grip, and asked what flavor popsicle he had in mind to distract him as they started an IV line.
Bucky, standing off to the side with Sam, faltered. “I thought–“
“I know.” Sam swallowed hard. “Me, too.”
“That was…”
“Yeah.”
After a beat of silence, Bucky cocked his head. “You think Morgan has enough popsicles to go around?”
Sam’s mouth twitched with the faint beginnings of a smile.
“I think we’ve earned it.”