1 – 1 of 1 Works in Mantis
Summary
Anthology containing:
i. stabbed
Peter was paying attention, honest.
But the mugger said, “Spiderman, knife to see you,” and then plunged the blade into his side while all Peter could think about was oh my god, did the mugger just make a pun? Then all he could think about was the cold sensation in his side and the way it turned a blistering hot when the knife was yanked from his skin.
AKA the first day of whumpvember, my super late version of whumptober
ii. bloody hands
“He shouldn’t be alive,” Cho had whispered after Peter fell back into a deep sleep. “A person can’t lose that much blood and still be alive.”
As much as Peter was a miracle, he was also one disaster after another, and Tony didn’t know if he could hold out any longer. The kid was pushing himself so hard every night and going home with more injuries than he’d given out. And Tony was getting phone calls every other night, and last night-
He clenched the glass in his hand. He hadn’t picked up. He hadn’t heard Peter’s call.
iii. insomnia
The problem was, Tony was tired to his bones. He was aching and slow and he felt the desperate need to sleep, but it just wouldn’t come. He wasn’t afraid of the nightmares that plagued him when his guards were lowered – no, he’d seen the worst and come back from it.
Tony wasn’t avoiding sleep. Sleep was avoiding Tony.
iv. "no, stop!"
The footsteps had slowed to a stop and Peter could hear the gunner’s breathing, could hear their fingers tapping against the gun. He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let people get hurt – not when he had a better chance of surviving. But moving would attract the gunner to their class.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
There was a gunman in his school and he’d come for Peter.
v. poisoned
Peter collapsed onto the closest bed and groaned into the duvet.
“Stomach ache, kid?”
“Yeah,” Peter said a moment later, turning his head to breathe. “I think it’s the sushi.”
“I said we shouldn’t buy gas station sushi,” Tony replied.
“But I wanted gas station sushi."
vi. betrayed
Peter was nine when the Strange Things happened.
When his dad, Tony Stark, disappeared for three months straight and no one would tell Peter where he was.
When Obadiah Stane, one of the four people Tony had promised Peter he could trust besides him, tore out his Dad's heart.
vii. kidnapped
He awoke with a sharp intake of breath, unsure if his eyes were really open with the darkness that surrounded him. His ankles weren’t tied together, neither were his wrists – he was on his side, curled into a ball, and there was only a single pinprick of light in the shape of a small hole, all the way down by his feet.
Peter frowned, his mind racing to connect what he was seeing.
Ah, got it. Peter was in a box.
viii. (disco) fever
“Please don’t make me watch this,” Peter whined, moving to lean on Tony as he did so.
“No can do, buddy,” Tony said. “It’s movie night. It’s May’s turn. Law is, we have to watch this.”
“Don’t act like you’re not excited,” Pepper commented, pulling her feet up onto the cushions. “You’ve been humming Stayin’ Alive all day.”
Tony grinned. “That’s because it’s got a great soundtrack. I am excited. May’s turns are the best turns.”
May’s turns were the worst turns.
ix. stranded
“You know,” Peter said conversationally, despite the situation, “my parents died in a plane crash.”
Tony released a harsh breath, turning his head to look at Peter where they laid amongst rubble and ruin on the floor of the forest. “That’s not helping, kid.”
Peter hummed his indifference to that statement. “I’m just saying. The died on a plane crash – I never even flew in a plane until Germany – and now look at us.”
“We’re not dead,” Tony replied.
“Not yet.”
x. bruises
“You are May’s number one priority, you know that.”
“She deserves to be happy.”
“She does,” Tony agreed. “But you make her happy. And I want you to consider this for a minute, okay, because maybe this is something that’ll be important to remember in future, too.” Tony moved from his work, turning his stool so he faced Peter dead on. “If he was hitting you now, what makes you think he wouldn’t hit May later?”
xi. hypothermia
Howard Stark searching and searching, telling tales to a young Tony, too wide-eyed to know what would become of the man in the ice and how his story would loop around his, inexplicable and inextricable.
There was a slither of Tony’s being that wished to go back in time and tell his younger self that he could hate Captain America all he wanted; he should use it as his very own shield, heft it high and carry it always, so when the good Rogers himself swung a punch, Tony would already be deflecting it.
Everything was tinged with blue.
xii. electrocution
On screen, Peter was setting up the device; placing the pads and wires along Tony’s right arm. "Alright, so basically I had my friend, Ned, write out a bunch of questions for us, and we’re gonna answer them. If we answer incorrectly, we get shocked.”
“What?”
“Shocked, Mr Stark.”
“You’re going to electrocute me.”
“Only if you don’t know the answer.”
xiii. "stay."
“Alright, we’re doing Avengers quizzes today.”
“Okay, we’re starting with Which Avenger are you destined for?”
Peter leaned over to see the screen, reading, “Which Avenger is your soulmate. Possible results are: Loki- wait a minute, Loki’s not an Avenger.”
Tony frowned at the screen. “He literally came to this planet to kill us all.”
“I get that he’s attractive or whatever, but he’s like, a mass murderer.”
Sequel to xii. "electrocution" - aka, they're back on the YouTube Shit
xiv. torture
He choked up a sob as the men in masks jolted Tony awake. They’d stopped his heart by accident – at least, Peter thought it was accidental. The way one bitched to the other; slapping him around the head and swearing in a language Peter didn’t understand, made him think it wasn’t on purpose. No, see, they still wanted something and Tony knew how to get it.
Peter didn’t know what it was though. He’d woken up to Tony’s screaming. He’d woken up long after Tony had bargained Peter down from the very same table Tony was being resuscitated on.
“You’re lucky,” one of the men had told Peter in broken English. “He swore he’d never give us a damn thing if even one of your hairs was out of place.”
xv. manhandling
It was an experiment and it was not.
It was Peter, seventeen years old, doing a keg stand in the middle of a crowd of whooping teenagers.
It was Peter, barely even tipsy, downing five tequila shots in a row and running onto the dance floor.
It was Peter, somehow, inexplicably, for one night only: one of the cool kids.
So Ned was, predictably, worried.
xvi. bedridden
Pepper Stark is decidedly not sick, because Pepper Stark doesn't get sick.
So the fact that's she's bedridden for the day means that she's probably dying.
Tony and Peter have a particular responsibility to look after while she's working through the plague.
xvii. drugged
“Well,” the doctor said, “it seems you two can only tell the truth. I’ll call the team in to start working on a fix, but I do recommend you don’t leave the tower in case you say something you usually wouldn’t.”
“I’ll be fine,” Peter said.
The doctor raised an eyebrow but didn’t look at him. “Peter, are you Spiderman?”
“Yes.” Peter blinked. “I see your point.”
(Tony and Peter get truth-serumed and they take full advantage of this.)
xviii. hostage
“Stark,” the gunman said. “Me shooting this kid is the least of your worries.”
It would never be the least, Tony knew. But there was a lot of other worries surrounding it, namely how he’d get Peter out of the situation, and how he was already bleeding profusely from his right shoulder, where a bullet had already pierced into his skin from when the gunners had initially entered.
Peter’s eyes had widened and his breath had caught and a second later he was shot through. He’d dodged, minutely, and it meant all the difference. The bullet would’ve gone straight through the centre of his chest if he hadn’t.
“I’ll be honest,” Tony said, his gun trained on the two, “you holding a kid hostage is pretty high on my list.”
xix. exhaustion
“Peter. You with me?”
“Ya-huh.”
“Alright, care to sit up?” Tony helped heave him up and Peter blinked, slow. He yawned and felt his spine squeeze out every inch of pain it could. “I’d love to have a chat with you about your health and sleeping habits,” he said, “but there’s aliens invading, so do you mind if we do it later?”
xx. concussion
It had happened in gym, when Peter lost focus for a moment and stacked it during the obstacle course, his head slamming into the ground. The entire gym had gone silent when Peter didn’t immediately move, before Coach Wilson raced across the room to Peter’s side, who then groaned quietly into the floor.
Ned had volunteered to take him to the nurse’s station when he counted Wilson’s two held up fingers as six.
xxi. harsh climate
“Morning, Mr Stark!”
“Hey, Pete,” Tony said, slow, nursing a cup of coffee as the holoscreens in front of him ran projections and numbers, one after another.
“Did you see all the snow?” Peter asked, and Tony could hear the wind and distant car horns blaring.
“Uh, yeah, I did. I also saw that you’re in your suit.”
“Sure am.”
“What happened to that little institution called school?”
Peter laughed and whooped. Tony was pretty sure he’d done a flip. “Snow day! School’s cancelled!”
xxii. friendly fire
“There are incoming reports of an attack on the Met. Men armed with guns have attacked civilians and taken hostages. It has been claimed by the Watch Dogs,” FRIDAY announced.
“The who now?” Tony replied.
“The Watch Dogs,” Peter said. “They’re an anti-inhuman terrorist group. How don’t you know that?”
If Tony could’ve shrugged while flying with a spider-child on his back, he would’ve. “Been busy raising an infant or something like that."
xxiii. self-sacrifice
There is one gun.
There is one bullet.
You may not shoot yourself.
Someone must die.
If no one is killed, you all die.
You have one hour.
xxiv. drowning
Tony frowned as he logged into the Baby Monitor app he’d made to connect to the Spiderman suit. Peter’s heartrate was off the charts and he’d been sitting in the same spot on the Brooklyn Bridge for almost an hour.
“I’m fine, Mr Stark.”
Tony hated that he recognised the lie when he heard it. He knew it because he’d sounded the same way before. He’d said the same, defeated I’m fine that Peter was saying, and he knew it meant the opposite.
xxv. restraints
“Daddy says you hurt,” Morgan said, a frown so deep it caused wrinkles between her brows. Peter gently reached out a hand to smooth it out, trying for a tired smile.
“I’m okay,” he promised. “Where is your Daddy?”
She shrugged. “Big idea.”
“He had a big idea?”
Morgan nodded. “Mommy said you wouldn’t like it.”
Peter frowned. This couldn’t be good.
xxvi. broken ribs
"It’s like your rib is just out of position. You just woke up like this?”
“Yeah. I mean, I got punched in that area during sparring the other day – Happy had a field day with it. But, I didn’t feel anything until today.”
Rhodey shrugged. “Bones, man.”
“Bones, man,” Tony agreed, in the same disdainful tone.
xxvii. "i can't walk"
It happened in a crash.
A blinding, blistering pain, then nothing.
The loud screech of metal, the slam of cars against cars against walls. Crumbling brick. Shouts of fear, of pain. The air bag going off, Happy’s grunt.
A flash of light, like the sun, burning into Peter’s retinas for just heartbeat. Then gone, like it never existed. The car shaking, everything shaking.
The blinding, blistering pain, then nothing.
xxviii. seizure
Tony Stark had a seizure that morning.
He had one, he got checked out, told that while it looked like an epileptic seizure, it was actually caused by stress, and was sent back to his room with strict instructions to rest.
Tony Stark, futurist, mechanic, Iron Man, did not do rest.
xxix. caregiver
“Hey!” Peter called when he reached the alley.
Ahead of him was a man in a dark jacket, a knife outstretched, and a short woman with trembling hands, her handbag being yanked into the mugger’s grasp.
“There are young, impressionable minds present,” Peter said. “Please set a good example for them.”
The mugger blinked at him. “What the hell? Is that a baby?”
Peter shrugged, Morgan babbled in his ear. “It’s bring your sister to work day, what can I say?"
xxx. showdown
Mr Stark knighted him. “You’re an Avenger, kid.”
Peter started to smile, and then grew serious. Avengers dealt with the big stuff. Avengers dealt with global threats. Avengers were responsible for an entire planet.
Avengers weren’t soldiers, but this was certainly a war.
Peter had never been fit for battle, but he turned on his heel and followed after Mr Stark anyway. There was a whole planet counting on him now.
Shelves: Marvel Comics
- Site:
- archiveofourown.org
- Words:
- 68,486
- Status:
- Completed