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Something was wrong.
He wasn’t sure quite what, couldn’t remember much, but his neck was tingling with the buzz of danger.
Dark spots danced in front of his vision as he opened his eyes, waking up slowly. He winced at the dull throb coming from his head before he looked around to find himself on the floor of an empty concrete room. As he adjusted to the pounding headache, he tried to get his bearings. Looking down, he was still in his Spider-Man outfit and judging by the feeling of fabric on his face, his mask was still on.
Slowly, he stood, wincing at the sharp stab the change in position brought to his head. Overall, he felt like he got hit by a train, so he was certainly hoping to figure out what happened so he could get back to the med bay and his wonderful pain meds.
The concrete room was fairly small, a low ceiling with no windows and only one door. As he tried the doorknob, he groaned realizing it was locked. That wasn’t a great indicator. He tried listening through the walls and ceiling, able to pick up around 15 heartbeats and some muffled voices, but it was hard to tell. The walls and ceiling seemed to be incredibly thick, making it difficult to hear.
He tried to kick the door open, but cursed as it sent a jolt of pain down his ankle, not showing more than the tiniest dent. Knocking on the door, he realized it was equally thick and probably made of vibranium or something similar to it. Well, that fucked his chances to break out.
“Hey, Karen?” he whispered, aware of the small camera that was in the corner, probably undetectable to most people but the buzzing of electricity immediately drew his attention to it.
There was no response.
“Karen?”
Silence.
Peter sighed, of course his suit would be offline. Given that it seemed increasingly likely that he was not here willingly, nor was he supposed to leave, it made sense that they would disable the suit. Still, part of him always hoped (and was sometimes right) that the villains would just be absolute idiots.
Unfortunately, these were not, so Peter resolved to sit in the corner, head resting against the hard wall as he closed his eyes, hoping the headache would go away as he tried to remember what happened.
He knew he had gone out for patrol, especially given his current get up, so he started there. He vaguely remembered crawling out of the window, but he hadn’t been quiet. Why? Oh, right. May was away for the weekend at some conference so he had been staying home alone, not needing to hide his post-curfew patrols from May. Sure, she knew about his vigilante activities, but she had a strict curfew that he sometimes just couldn’t follow. What was he supposed to do? Sit doing his homework while listening to his neighbor getting mugged two streets over? No can do.
So, he remembered, it had been a Friday night around midnight when he went out, having to start late because he had stayed late at the lab with Tony (who also agreed with May’s curfew, forcing Peter to hack the suit to stop it from notifying Tony whenever he put it on or got injured past curfew).
He remembered stopping a small corner store from being robbed, stopping a few bike and car thieves, and one or two muggers. Muggers. That felt relevant. He searched through his memory for something about muggers.
Peter dropped his head in his hands. “God, I’m an idiot” he groaned, the fog around his memory finally clearing
Peter had heard a scream coming from an alley and, naturally, went to go help whoever it was. Unfortunately, that meant ignoring that the scream sounded oddly quiet and slightly electronic, like it was playing from a speaker instead of someone’s lungs. But he had brushed it off because why would anyone play a scream on a speaker? When he got there, he saw a figure shooting out of the alley and assumed that must be the victim escaping. He had been relieved, having one less thing to contend with in the situation. He didn’t think about how they managed to escape, especially given that there were 5 large men in the alley and his spidey-sense was officially freaking the fuck out, but hey, he could take them, right? He also brushed off the fact that all of the men looked unusually ready for Spider-Man, like they had been expecting him and had a large van parked right outside the alley. Maybe they were just environmentally conscious and carpooled!
Yeah, he was an idiot
Turns out, if he had actually just paid attention — like he was now cursing himself for not doing — he would’ve known that 1) the scream was, in fact, from a speaker (which he felt most stupid for falling for because what is even the point? The guys had too big of an ego to just scream themselves?? He hated falling for stupid traps) 2) the “victim” had run past all 5 of the men without any of them actually making an attempt to stop them, and were clearly never actually trapped by them, 3) his spidey-senses were freaking out for a damn good reason, 4) if he actually listened, he would have heard 5 more heartbeats coming from the van he presumed to be empty, (one of which he would later find out held very strong tranquilizer darts) and 5) this was so obviously a trap.
Unfortunately, Peter did not pay attention. So, in the ensuing fight, he had just taken down the third of the five men he thought were there when his spidey-sense made him dodge two things he couldn’t see before he felt a prick in his neck and promptly blacked out, waking up here.
He had been kidnapped. And really, it was his own fault, it wasn’t even a particularly clever ruse, he just hadn’t been as on top of it lately as he should be and apparently when Peter Parker isn’t on top of it, he gets kidnapped. Yep, Parker Luck was still working in full force.
He was about to start planning an escape when the door burst open and a large man strode up to him, grabbing his arm and yanking him to his feet.
“Oh, finally! You know, I was thinking and unfortunately, I’ll have to give this place 2 stars. I appreciate that you get your own room but really the amenities and customer service so far have been less than stellar. I mean, really, I think you could do with some better staff, maybe a bed or-”
He was cut off by the man clamping a hand over Peter’s mouth. “My god, do you ever shut up, spider-freak?” he grumbled.
A muffled “Nope.” came from under the man’s hand along with a very self-satisfied smirk visible through the narrowing eyes of the mask.
“Whatever,” the man grumbled, yanking him out of the room. Peter stumbled after him, wondering when would be the best opportunity to run.
“Whatcha doin’” he asked innocently, batting his eyes with a grin as he knew how disturbing the rapid blinking of his lenses was.
“Takin’ you to get tested. Figure out what makes you such a freak,” he grunted, though Peter could see a gleam of sick delight in his eyes.
His stomach churned as he stared up at the man, realization sinking in. They didn’t take the mask off because they didn’t care about his identity. They didn’t plan on ever releasing him. They only cared about figuring out his powers, experimenting on him.
If they figured out how to replicate his powers, how to do that to other people? Give that responsibility to anyone they wanted? Peter shuttered to imagine what would happen.
He knew he was powerful. He had gone hand to hand with several Avengers, tested his strength against the two super soldiers on the team and beat them easily. Not to mention his several other powers. His powers were a serious threat, and in the wrong hands they could be catastrophic.
He realized he couldn’t let them even start. Any data they gained could be harmful later down the line.
In a split second decision, Peter yanked his arm out of the man’s grasp and sprinted in the other direction.
The man only sighed, the click of a button immediately triggering an alarm.
Thick, metal doors came crashing down in increments,closing the exits off and separating the hall into wide increments.
He panicked, trying to turn back, but found himself stuck between two of the doors.
“Think, Peter. Think!” he hissed to himself, staring at the override panel on the wall. It required biomarker codes, and would take too much time to hack. But Peter wasn’t known for his hacking, he was known for his engineering.
Without a second of hesitation, he ripped the panel off the wall, exposing the hydraulics and wiring running beneath it.
He had one chance to hope this would work, and hope it didn’t destroy him in the process.
His fingers flew through the mechanics, twisting and rearranging with a steady focus as the buzz of his senses grew louder, his hearing picking up the doors further into the center slowly rising one by one as steps marched through each newly opened increment. He had to time this just right.
He heard the door right before his clang to a stop in the ceiling and twisted the final wires together, pulling out the wire he’d rigged to a makeshift trigger button. Slowly, he stepped away from the door, backing up until he was pressed against the furthest one, the trigger held steady in his trembling palm.
The whirring of mechanics filled the room as the door began to open, a little slower and shakier than the others thanks to Peter borrowing from it. He watched as tactical boots came into view, then uniform cargo pants loaded with guns — good, he thought. More gunpowder. More fuel — then massive automatic rifles held in gloved hands.
He held his breath as finally, masked, helmeted faces came into view, the security immediately marching towards him.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and listened, waiting until the middle row was directly aligned with the empty space in the wall where the wire in his hand fed into.
The moment their boots landed, his finger squeezed the trigger, every muscle tensing as a massive explosion tore through the troops sending him flying as the facility shook apart, shockwaves crumbling the building around him.
***
Peter let out a soft groan as he woke up. The first thing he noticed was the pain radiating through his whole body. There was a sharp stabbing in his side that shot agony through his ribs with every breath. Accompanying it was a throbbing pain in the side of his head and a pressure on his foot. But most concerning was the crushing weight on his arm.
Blinking to adjust his vision to the dark, he peered through the falling dust to find himself surrounded by rubble, thick slabs of concrete piled around him. Luckily, he seemed to have mostly landed in a gap, the large chunk above him being held up by another chunk next to him to leave him in the small area underneath. Unfortunately, not all of him made it under.
A large chunk was pinning his foot, keeping him stuck. That’s not great. A sheet of metal had sliced through his suit and was now wedged in his side, blood pooling beneath him. That’s really not great. Taking a deep breath, he raked his eyes over to his arm. He took in a sharp breath as he saw the pile of rubble — significantly larger, even, than the one pinning his foot — on his arm. His arm, which was mangled and crushed underneath the concrete.
Looking up, Peter realized there was several yards of rubble above him. There must have been multiple floors of the building before the explosion. Now, Peter was trapped underneath all of them.
His breath started to pick up, coming in ragged, shallow gasps. This was just like the warehouse. No, he thought, this is worse. The warehouse was 10 tons. This was easily double that, maybe triple. He had improved his strength over the past few months, but he knew there was no way he could lift this. He couldn’t get out. He was stuck. Trapped. He was going to die here.
A blinding pain shot through his side as each gasp agitated the metal slicing through his abdomen. He tried to get it under control but the dust, the quiet, the weight, the pain. It was all too much. Too similar. He was going to die here. He couldn’t breathe. He got increasingly lightheaded as the pain and hyperventilating tore him from reality until he blacked out.
*****
When Peter woke again, he was momentarily relieved to have woken with full memory this time. That was, until he processed the memories and his situation came back to him. He was still trapped under the rubble. It had been a couple hours judging by how much the bleeding in his side had slowed. The other indication of difference in time was the light. He was still buried, but he could see. Light was streaming into his small space from behind him. Gathering his energy, he turned his head back.
He nearly choked on his tears of joy when he realized there was an opening behind him. Not large, but enough that he could crawl through it. He reached towards the opening, trying to pull himself towards it when a painful pull on his foot and arm reminded him that he was trapped.
His tears quickly turned to tears of anger. Freedom was so close. It was right there. But he still couldn’t reach it. He was trapped.
It had been hours, his suit wasn’t working, there was no way for anyone to know where he was, and no one even necessarily knew he was missing yet. For all he knew, it would be days until someone noticed he was missing, when he didn’t show up to school on Monday. He knew he wouldn’t last that long. He hadn’t eaten in a while and his metabolism was burning through the little he did eat even faster than normal as it was struggling to heal him. He was going to get weaker and, if he didn’t get out soon, he wouldn’t be able to get out at all.
No one was coming to save him. No one could. No one but himself.
He took a deep breath, trying to focus on drawing up all the strength he had. Leaning over to his foot as much as he could in the small space with his arm trapped, he braced his free hand and other foot firmly under the concrete pinning his foot. With a few more deep breaths, he braced himself as steady as he could before pushing all his force up against it. With a strained shout, the rubble shifted and, with one last desperate shove, he managed to raise it just high enough to quickly drag his ankle out.
He curled in on himself, ankle throbbing and pain shooting through his chest as his wound started to bleed again from his efforts jostling the metal.
“I’m just… gonna take a- a breather here… just for a minute.” he whispered to himself, laying back down. He was one step closer to freedom, but that last step was more like a leap. Over a 50 food canyon. Filled with crocodiles. On fire.
He looked over at his arm, tears springing to his eyes. He was so close. But it took all of his strength to lift the rubble from his foot and that wasn’t nearly as much weight. There was no way he could lift this.
To test his theory, he braced his feet and free hand against the rubble and tried to shove it off, putting all his strength into the concrete, but it didn’t move an inch.
He flopped onto his back, panting from the effort as his side pulsated with more burning pain. He probably would have to take the sheet out to crawl through the hole, even if Tony always told him to leave anything he got stabbed with in (unless it was poisonous, Tony had specified after Peter had passed out from a poison that really shouldn’t have had much of an impact on him but he had left it in while waiting to get to the med bay, failing to mention how it made him “feel weird”. ‘Kid, why would you leave it in?!’ ‘You yell at me whenever I try to pull knives out when I’m stabbed.’ ‘WELL OBVIOUSLY THAT DOESN’T APPLY IF IT’S ACTIVELY POISONING YOU.’ ‘Well how was I supposed to know that?’ “How- Oh my god.’) Yeah, it wasn’t poisoning him so he was supposed to leave it in, but it also certainly wasn’t helping.
So, Peter grabbed it with a firm hand and, before he could think too hard about it, yanked it out of his side, ripping a strangled cry from his throat.
As he caught his breath, staring down at the sharp metal now covered in his blood, he finally realized that he did have one option. One horrible option that made him grimace before promptly vomiting to his side. But, it was an idea nonetheless. It was the only way for him to make it out of this alive. He had to do it.
So, he steeled his resolve and gripped the metal harder, taking a deep breath. He had to do it, he repeated to himself. He had to.
*******
Tony was sitting on a bench outside of the compound, watching the Avengers train out on the lawn. He had passed up the offer, pretending to be too lazy, but in reality he was freaking out internally.
Something was wrong with Peter. Tony had texted him to ask if he wanted to come over for the weekend, which always got an immediate and enthusiastic response, but it had now been 4 hours and the kid still hadn’t responded. No matter how many follow up texts or phone calls Tony sent, the kid was radio silent.
He hadn’t gotten any notification that Peter had put the suit on, so he assumed he wasn’t out as Spider-Man. Peter Parker wouldn’t get into serious trouble, right? The kid had terrible luck, but at least most of the time his life was in danger was as Spider-Man, and the kid wasn’t Spider-Man right now. So, Tony tried to convince himself, Peter was fine. He had to be.
Looking up from his StarkPad where he had his various attempts at communicating with and tracking Peter open, he noticed a figure slowly approaching the compound. It was moving odd, limping out of the trees and towards Tony.
The Avengers also noticed, coming to the front with Tony as they all braced for a potential threat, when Tony realized he recognized that suit.
“Peter?” he called out, voice coming out strangled.
Now that he was closer, Tony could see him limping heavily, dragging one foot behind him with barely any movement or weight put on it. There was a large, dark red stain spreading over his side and leaving a slight trail in the grass behind him, and the boy was holding his upper body at an odd position, angling one arm away from them as the other seemed to be clutching the obscured shoulder.
His mask was off, hair matted with blood and sweat, dirt on his face cut through with tear tracks. His face was covered in blood and bruises, and his eyes were half-lidded and weakly wincing in pain with every step.
Taking in the appearance of his kid, Tony felt his heart stop in his chest.
“Peter?” he shrieked, running over to him.
His feet pounded on the grass as he flew towards his kid.
“Peter? Are you okay? What happened to you?”
“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter said weakly, offering him a pained grin. “Have… have you ever seen that- that movie…”
Tony sucked in his breath. He was making a reference, that must mean he’s okay, right?
Tony should know better.
“What movie?”
“The… the movie… 127 hours.” Peter breathed.
Tony’s eyes widened, diving for Peter as he collapsed. When he grabbed him by the shoulders, his right hand was met with blood and a sickening feeling. As he looked down, the memory of the trailer for the movie Peter just named came flooding back as he took in the bloody stump under his hand where Peter’s arm used to be.
“Oh my god.” he heard Sam breathe behind him, followed by several similarly shocked gasps.
Tony choked on a sob before retching in the grass next to him.
***
The next few hours were a blur. He had gone into crazed autopilot, sprinting Peter into the med bay and watching as Helen took in the boy’s state with wide eyes and a barely swallowed remark.
Then, he had been ushered out into the hall where the other Avengers were waiting. Bucky, Rhodey, and Wanda’s eyes were wide and glassy, horrified by the image burned into their brain. Sam, Steve, and Clint all looked moments away from vomiting like Tony had already done a few times at this point. Vision and Nat were stoic, but he could still see the panic and worry shining in their eyes as they glanced back to the doors Tony came through as if they would suddenly turn invisible and let them see the boy and make sure he was okay.
Tony himself couldn’t breathe. He collapsed when he caught the sight of Peter’s blood covering his hands and drenching his clothes, earning himself a check over in the med bay despite his attempt to verbally — and almost physically — fight it, claiming that he was fine, which was proved to be true (physically, at least) a few minutes later, but Rhodey had still made him go take a shower and change into clean clothes.
Tony had tried to protest but the bile that rose in his throat every time he looked down or became conscious of the stickiness on his hands forced him to reluctantly follow the order. He still did so as quickly as possible, though, so he could return to waiting right outside the med bay, ready for the moment there was an update.
They stayed like that for hours. No one moved or spoke, all waiting in desperate silence for their youngest team member to be okay. The hallway was filled with earth’s mightiest heroes, though none seemed terribly mighty, sporting red-rimmed eyes and tight-lipped mouths. Not a single person dared to leave the hallway lest they miss Peter waking up, or, god forbid, not.
After five hours, the lingering, tense silence was finally broken by the doors to the med bay opening as an exhausted looking Helen Cho stepped out.
Everyone straightened immediately, standing to crowd around her, though they obviously let Tony shove his way to the front.
“Helen? How is he? Please tell me he’s okay, please,” Tony choked out, tears returning to his eyes.
She offered him a soft smile and took a deep breath. “He is okay,” everyone let out a soft sigh of relief, but Helen continued, “somewhat. He sustained severe injuries. We still aren’t sure exactly how, we will have to ask him when he wakes up, but he had several broken, fractured, and bruised bones, including 4 broken ribs and a shattered ankle. He also had a deep wound in his side. And, of course, the most concerning: his arm was amputated. It appears that it was amputated with a large, sharp object with one significant force.” Helen paused as Tony rushed over to a trash can to vomit again and took in the pale faces of the other Avengers taking in the news.
“He… will it be okay?” Bucky asked, voice thick.
“He will survive. He is in a medically induced coma for the moment because his healing factor took such a great amount of energy from his metabolism that he was borderline malnourished, so we need him to save his energy while his body heals and we help replenish its nutrients. We will take him off the sedative in one week, upon which it may take another few days to a week to wake up.”
“And when he wakes up?” Natasha questioned, raising her eyebrow as she tried to keep her face neutral, though the anguish and worry in her features was barely hidden.
“When he wakes up, he will have to stay on bed rest while he heals, which we all know he won’t like,” a few people let out a half-hearted soft chuckle at that, “so it’ll take some effort, but we all need to make sure he doesn’t push himself too hard or it could make it worse. It will also be awhile before he can start patrolling again. Most importantly, we will have to figure out what to do about his arm. We were able to stop the bleeding and it is healing over thanks to his healing factor but it will obviously be a significant adjustment for him. There are things we can do to help, though.” She offered, gesturing to Bucky’s arm. Bucky grimaced, he never wanted someone else to need one, much less Peter. That was a trauma the kid shouldn’t have to go through. But at least they did have resources. “Tony, I’m sure you can help with that. I also recommend calling Shuri, I’m sure she’d be happy to help.”
Tony nodded weakly, holding onto the trash can to keep himself upright. “Can we see him?” he rasped out.
When Helen nodded, he burst through the doors, running to Peter’s side. He paused as he took in the sight of his kid. He looked so small in that hospital bed, surrounded by wires and tubes and bandages, hooked up to so many machines Tony had no idea the function of. His head and side were heavily bandaged, his foot was propped up, and his arm… his arm was gone, just a bandaged stump of his shoulder resting above the sickeningly empty space on the bed.
He was so little, skin pale and chest rising and falling softly but still seeming a little too shallow. Tony bit back a sob before dropping into the chair next to him and gently grabbing his hand. His only hand he thought, but quickly shook the realization away. He could think about that later. Right now, his kid needed him and he would be there no matter what.
*****
Peter was floating in some dark, inky void. He was so tired, and it felt so nice. There was no pain, no worry, he could just rest.
Every now and then, it would lighten slightly. Voices would drift through the silence, but the intrusion was still comforting, the voices soft and familiar.
“...thinking about your… y’know. Shuri’s been a real help, so has Bucky. They both want to help you. We’ll give you a ton of cool stuff, don’t you worry…”
The light never lasted long, Peter often letting himself slip back into the comforting quiet, but anytime it lightened, there was always a voice waiting for him to hear it.
“...glad you’re okay, baby spider. You scared us for a minute there…”
“...scared us, loser.” “MJ, you can’t call him a loser!” “Mmm I think I can, loser. You hear this, Peter? He wants me to stop being honest. This is censorship.” “Fine. But seriously dude, we’re glad you’re okay. Please wake up soon? I have a lego set we can build…”
“...so sorry, Peter. I wish you didn’t have to go through that, whatever it was. I’ll kill ‘em, whoever did this.” The voice paused before letting out a soft sigh. “I guess you actually wouldn’t want that, huh? And you’d probably be all excited about us matching. I don’t know how you do it, kid…”
“...managed to get Tony to shower for once, so I’ll keep you company in the meantime. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We’re all here for you and are so glad you’re okay. I hope you know how much we care about you…”
“...real punk, y’know that? I mean how does this even happen? You scared us, kid. Real rude of yo- hey, ow!” Peter mentally laughed at the sound of the soft smack.
“...if you don’t wake up within the next day, I will steal all of your food and take over as Tony’s favorite in the lab. I’m helping him with your arm and trust me I will conquer that lab if you take too long. Plus, it’s so boring being here without someone that isn’t ancient…”
“... here for you, Pete. I love you. I love you so much. I miss those big brown bambi eyes, I want you to wake up so badly, but you need to rest until you’re ready, okay? Wake up whenever you’re ready. Just please, wake up. Until then, I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I just miss you, kid. It’s selfish, but I want you to wake up right now. But I know you’re healing. Don’t push yourself, not for me. Take your time… just maybe not too much time, okay? I love you kid. I’ll be here. I won’t leave you.”
The soft rumble of the familiar voice didn’t fade out this time, enough for Peter to latch on and slowly pull his way out of the thick darkness. As the man continued muttering soft reassurances, Peter dragged himself out of the darkness, senses slowly coming back to him. He felt two calloused hands clasped around his, thumb rubbing gently over the back of his hand. Another hand from the other side was carding softly through his hair, nails scratching his scalp soothingly. Peter hummed softly at the feeling, letting his head lean gently into their hand.
The hand paused, earning a quiet grumble from Peter, before resuming along with a voice.
“Peter? Are you awake?”
Peter mumbled something incoherent, words not quite making their way through his murky consciousness yet.
As more came back to him, he slowly started to realize that everything hurt. He felt like he got a building dropped on him (which he could, unfortunately, say from experience after Homecoming night) and there was so much pain flooding back that he couldn’t even pinpoint where it was coming from or why.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to squirm, but every movement made it worse, a pathetic whine escaping his throat.
“Peter? Are you okay?” a panicked voice came from his other side, presumably from the person with their hand in his hair. He recognized the girl’s voice, but his mind couldn’t quite grasp how.
“Shit,” the man muttered. “I think he needs more pain meds. Fri, get Cho in here please.”
Thank god, Peter thought. He definitely did need those pain meds. He was relieved to hear a door open and quick footsteps approaching.
“Is he awake?” A soft voice asked. He squirmed again, trying to escape the pain that was increasing with his consciousness, but the movement jostled his ribs, which definitely felt broken, he thought, and made him gasp in pain. “Hurts,” he groaned out, trying to keep the tears in his eyes from spilling out.
“Sorry, Peter. We had to wait for you to wake up to figure out specifically how much medication you should be on with how active your healing factor and metabolism was. You should be feeling better in a moment.”
Thankfully, she wasn’t lying. A few seconds later, the fiery pain dulled to a slight ache and he relaxed against the bed, relieved.
“Thanks.” he muttered, keeping his eyes closed. He was inclined to give in to the exhaustion seeping into his bones, but a voice made him pause.
“Pete? Can you open your eyes? Please, kid.”
Peter sluggishly turned his head towards the voice, forcing his eyes open. He had to blink away the bright light to get his eyes to focus, even though he could tell the lights were much lower than they normally would be. When his vision finally focused, a familiar face was staring hopefully back at him, teary-eyed but with a wide smile.
“There you are. Good to see you awake, kiddo. You gave us a bit of a scare.”
“Sorry, Mr. Stark.” he mumbled, squeezing Tony’s hands with his own.
“Hey, no apologizing,” he heard a firm voice from his other side.
As he turned to face them, his smile grew. “Hey, MJ. Whatcha doin’ here?” he muttered, mind still slow.
“I was waiting for you to wake up. I was worried about you, loser. We all were. Ned just left a few hours ago to make food for us but he’ll be back soon.”
Peter smiled as she kept carding her hand through his hair. She still appeared more neutral than most, but he could tell from the way her eyes were slightly wider than normal and her heartbeat was racing that she had been worried.
“Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well, you did. But you’re okay now, so it’s fine. Everything will be okay.”
Peter frowned at the way it sounded like MJ was trying to comfort him. He felt like shit, sure, but he hadn’t seen her or Tony this worried in a long time.
Turning to Tony, he studied his mentor’s face. His smile was tight and his jaw was tense, like even though Peter was awake there was still… something.
“What happened?” he croaked, throat suddenly dry.
Tony took the opportunity to avoid the question, immediately grabbing a cup of water from a nearby table and helping Peter drink it slowly. When he was done drinking, he raised an eyebrow at Tony as he set the cup back down, clearly still trying to avoid the question.
“How much do you remember, Pete?”
Peter considered the question, realizing he couldn’t remember much of anything. He shrugged, looking expectantly up at Tony. “I can’t remember yet.” He knew the memories were there but they felt just out of reach, so he resolved to search for them later.
Tony looked like he was about to vomit as he tried to find the words. That’s not a good sign, Peter thought nervously.
“We don’t know exactly what happened but you… you showed up at the compound and you were- you were pretty badly injured. Helen can tell you the specifics, there were a lot of broken bones and a pretty nasty gash in your side and…” Tony trailed off, swallowing nervously as he looked away from Peter.
“And?”
Tony still seemed unable to speak, but he kept glancing at his other side. At what, exactly, it was hard to tell with the drugs impairing his focus. Maybe at MJ, for some reason? Peter turned to look at her, to find her looking equally as nervous, staring back at him, face pale.
“Hey, what is it? It’s okay, just tell me.” he murmured to her, trying to squeeze her hand.
That’s when he noticed he couldn’t squeeze her hand, he couldn’t even feel his own. She wasn’t holding his hand either. He followed her arm to see her hand resting on his shoulder- his shoulder without his arm.
Peter’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at the empty space where his arm should be. He tried to move his hand and arm again, thinking it must be some illusion, but all that responded was some weak muscle movements in his stump of a shoulder.
“What… oh my god.” He swallowed as everything came back to him. The kidnapping, the explosion, the rubble. “I cut off my own arm.” he whispered, swallowing down the bile that rose in his throat.
MJ’s head shot up at that, wild eyes meeting his. “You what?” she shrieked, immediately apologizing when he winced.
“I was hoping that wasn’t what you meant with that movie reference.” Tony muttered, dropping his head in his hands.
“Movie referen- oh my god Peter please tell me you did not reference 127 Hours, a fucking movie, while you were actively bleeding out.”
Peter gave her a sheepish grin. “Uh… sorry?”
“Parker I swear to god you’re gonna be the death of me.” she groaned, but her expression never quite lost that soft concern.
“...what happened out there, kid?” Tony asked eventually, drawing Peter’s attention back to him.
Peter looked down at his hand, (his only hand now, he thought, before shaking the thought away) where Tony was holding it. He sat for a while in silence, staring as he tried to find his words.
“I went out on a late patrol. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention because I got kidnapped and basically in my attempt to get out, I triggered an explosion and it brought the building down and I was totally fine because I ended up in a kinda gap area but, well, my arm didn’t. Technically, neither did my foot but I was able to get that out because it wasn’t as heavy but the piece on my arm was too heavy to lift or move at all and I had this sheet of metal in my side and I knew that if I didn’t get out I would pass out because of my metabolism and then I would never be found in time but there was an opening in the rubble I could squeeze through if I got free so I took the piece of metal and used all my strength to- y’know. Anyway then I crawled out and realized that it wasn’t too far from the compound and so I swung back and… yeah.” Peter rambled out, speaking so fast he didn’t have to think about the words he was saying. He knew if he thought about it he could never get it out and they deserved at least some explanation as to why he was suddenly armless.
After a long, drawn out silence, Peter looked up to find MJ and Tony gaping at him, along with Cho from where she had been checking something on one of the machines, and, much to his mortification, the entire team of Avengers in the doorway looking utterly horrified.
Yeah, this was gonna be a long conversation.