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“—and then, blam-blam! Do-do-do-do—blam blam blam! Blam! There’s this totally crazy laser beam that just — whoosh! — went right over my head and I’m like, holy cow—! It was insane, Mr. Stark, you should’ve seen it!”

Peter’s voice stretched thin where it tried to sound excited, pulled taut over something fragile beneath his vocal cords; barely rising above the steady chimes and beeps of the many machines lining the room.

It was a space he knew all too well by now — the kind of familiarity earned through frequent repetition. And each one, he made sure to note, was against his liking.

Both he and Mr. Stark had both spent way too much time here over the past year.

At least this time, he got a bigger room.

“Mhm-hm.” Pressed shoulder-to-shoulder beside him, Tony managed to wedge himself into the hospital bed without complaint. Half-reclined against the raised backing, his head tipped slightly back with his eyes shut, looking almost like he was dozing off; if not for the attentiveness hidden in every quiet hum of acknowledgment he gave.

Both his arms folded loosely across his chest, almost lackadaisically. He listened to Peter’s constant ramblings like it was any other day.

“Then there’s this crazy bright light, and next thing I know Thor flies right over me — and Vision, Mr. Stark it was so crazy, he just tore through everything with his yellow stone laser thing and there were lasers everywhere — blam! Blam blam! It was insane!”

The room itself seemed to breathe in quiet, artificial rhythms, a sharp contrast to Peter’s highly excited and breathless chattering. Ventilation whispered through hidden ducts as purified air filtered down from the ceiling. Sleek panels hummed low along the walls, transparent displays flickering faint blue light that painted everything in a sterile, muted glow.

Somewhere behind him, a pump cycled with strict precision — whirr…pause…whirr — pushing fluids through clear lines that disappeared beneath the tangle of blankets and tape at Peter’s arms; a steady, persistent soundtrack that had been on nonstop repeat.

“…and then you fly by — at first I had no idea it was you, ‘cause, you know, there was so much going on. And then one second I’m still strapped to the table and the next…wait, no, the next…no, that was after Bucky tried to get me out, which — okay, that part was insane, ‘cause he just, like, came outta nowhere…and there was fire everywhere! I swear, even the ceiling was on fire, and there were these like, fire-balls flying around that just fwoosh! fshhrr! It was everywhere — it was so crazy, Mr. Stark!”

Though animated with excitement, Peter’s eyes still looked utterly drained beneath it all, faded pale and hollow with dark exhaustion carved deep beneath them in bruised half-moons. Yet his words still came out quick and eager, tripping in uneven bursts, each word rushed for the next. All as his voice thinned into something weak and crackly, his breaths catching on themselves as the energy started to slip away.

Tony wasn’t surprised Peter kept talking, words spilling out in stubborn defiance. The kid had already informed him and every nurse that passed by that he was, verbatim, “more sick of sleeping than sitting through A.P. Bio.”

Tony didn’t argue with that. After all, he’d seen how this would end.

“Mhm-hm,” he hummed, low and steady.

He just let the kid have the sliver of wakefulness while it held.

“One second I’m laying there, and the next — wait, no, Groot. Did I tell you about Groot?” Peter pushed on, his voice lower in volume yet still persistent all the same. “He was yelling — or, you know, Groot-yelling, which is still yelling, I think, just more…plant-like? I don’t know, it was weird…and I think Bucky was throwing Rocket, that raccoon, at some point. That I could’ve imagined. That was really weird. It was all so crazy, Mr. Stark!”

Tony listened to the recollection with one ear tuned to Peter, and the other turned to the machines. His attention flickered between the rise and fall of Peter’s voice and the steady lines on the monitors. Never fully settling on either.

Still, his response came easily. Familiar.

Automatic.

“Mhm-hm.”

While he’d never tell the kid, Tony didn’t exactly require the play-by-play from Peter. He’d lived through the same battle with significantly more consciousness and substantially less blood being siphoned out of his body at the time. Safe to say, his version of events had considerably fewer gaps in it.

And whatever gaps adrenaline and panic had left in his own memory, FRIDAY had spent the last several days methodically tearing apart every second of footage available. Suit telemetry, thermal scans, comm logs, HUD recordings — replaying the disaster on an endless loop while searching for anything that could give them answers.

Anything that explained what Osborn had turned himself into.

“And then this music starts playing — old people music, Mr. Stark, like, really old — and then Star-Lord’s just flying around shooting stuff and there were explosions and yelling and Thor was crashing through walls —”

But somehow, none of the footage or his own recollection hit quite the same as hearing Peter talk about it.

Maybe, he figured, just maybe — it was because the kid recounted the whole nightmare like it had been some sort of chaotic Avengers field trip instead of the closest Tony had ever come to losing him since actually losing him.

He wasn’t entirely sure his shrapnel-damaged-but-technically-repaired heart was built to withstand this many near-death experiences involving one deeply unlucky teenager.

“Anyway, before I know it I’m on the ground — so not cool, and uh, it was-it was wild, I couldn’t — one moment I was on the ground and, uh…and Groot, he-he pointed at my webshooter, and I couldn’t — my hands weren’t really…working, which, uh…not ideal. You know. Considering..fire, and all.” Peter pulled in his lips as tight as they could go, just to pop them with a harsh smack! that sounded over each machine lining the room. “Really sucked, man..”

A harsh furrow pulled at his brows. Somewhere in the room, a monitor responded instantly. Its steady line stuttered, beeps sharpening just a fraction before smoothing out once again.

Tony’s brow twitched faintly, the only sign he’d noticed, but he didn’t open his eyes. His legs shifted slightly where they crossed at the ankles, adjusting just enough to stay braced against Peter’s side.

“Mhm-hm.”

Outside the bay window to the private room, the compound hid itself underneath thick blankets of slate-gray clouds smothering the sky, the faintest of light barely managing to filter through.

Tony had left the curtains only half-open, the rest drawn just enough to dull the clouds that peaked through, all while ensuring FRIDAY kept the overhead lights low. Not dark — never fully dark — but softened into something that was much quieter and more controlled.

Something that let the hours slip by unnoticed, so Peter could spend most of them asleep. Resting — recovering.

It didn’t matter how much the kid complained about sleeping the days away; it was a requirement. Non-negotiable, after what had happened.

“—and then he just, like — I dunno, it was crazy. He hits the trigger of my webshooter and I’m just — gone, Mr. Stark. Just like — nyooooooooomm!”

Peter made a small, flying motion with his hand, trying to sketch the motion in the air. His arm stopped with the restraint of wires, a sharp wince cutting through the momentum as the IVs anchored to him snagged at the sudden halt.

A sensor at his fingertip stilled his movements, the tip glowing red with his pulse. Peter gave the wires an offending look.

“Anyway,” he quickly moved on from the interruption. “I’m screaming, obviously, ‘cause — y’know, flying without consent. Big no-no.”

Tony huffed a muted laugh, the sterile air carrying an antiseptic bite that stung when it pulled too deeply into his chest; sharp and clean, dulled only by the subtle warmth of over-washed fabric beside him.

It clung to the heap of blankets swallowing Peter whole, their softened edges spilling unevenly over the sides of the bed. Against the sleek precision of the private medbay, they looked completely out of place — a dull, lived-in burgundy amid polished steel and glass. Something almost stubbornly human beneath all the cold machinery surrounding them.

Neither of them treated it like anything unusual.

“And then, uh…I’m-I’m just like, flying across the room and-and..” Peter swallowed as his breath snagged hard in his throat. His voice stuttered, losing some of its frantic momentum. “…a-and then you caught me.”

The sentence seemed to linger after it left him, settling somewhere between the soft drone of machinery and the faint patter of rain against the windows.

Tony tipped his head slightly against the raised backing of the bed, glancing sideways toward Peter — who caught the stare instantly despite the sluggish haze dragging at him. He turned his head just enough to meet Tony’s eyes through half-lowered lids.

For a moment, the room stayed quiet around them, washed out in the dull gray of storm clouds and distant rain while Tony simply looked back.

“Yep,” Tony finally murmured in turn, warmth slipping quietly beneath the certainty in his voice. “Sure did.”

Peter’s mouth tugged into something small and sheepish, the ghost of his usual grin trying to hold shape despite the fatigue pulling at it.

“Ten outta ten crash pad, by the way,” he murmured, voice roughened at the edges, quieter. Turning his head back against the pillow, his eyes settled closed with a smirk. “Would totally recommend.”

A faint huff of amusement slipped from Tony, controlled enough not to jostle the weight of blankets piled over Peter, or his own position stretched across them.

“Mhm,” he responded; again, almost automatically.

The room settled around them. Only the low murmur of machinery filled the space, steady monitors tracing endless rhythms while rain tapped against the distant glass beyond half-drawn curtains.

Then, Peter shivered harshly.

Pressed shoulder-to-shoulder against the kid, Tony felt every second of it; the involuntary tightening of muscles, the faint shudder that traveled through Peter’s frame in uneven waves.

“Ohh, m-man…” The words came out small, snagging hard between chattering teeth as another violent shiver rolled through him. All the animated momentum from earlier had drained away, replaced by something far more fragile. The next tremor hit hard enough to nearly jolt him upward from the mattress. “I’m r-really c-cold, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s eyes cracked open, one brow lifting in quiet skepticism as his gaze slid over the excessive pile of blankets cocooning Peter.

“Really? Still?” His mouth twisted with the kind of dry surprise that sounded only mildly exaggerated. “You are currently wrapped in,” Tony glanced downward as if genuinely trying to count, “what — four layers of absurdly expensive, ethically-sourced alpaca wool? I’m overheating out of sheer proximity here, kid.”

That earned him another tiny smile, and even a little bit of teeth in the grin.

Peter’s eyes drifted shut again, the faint smile softening out of existence as exhaustion settled heavier over him. The energy that kept him talking moments ago was fading fast as burnt, unused to the way even talking too long left him running on empty.

Tony watched it happen in real time. The slowed blinking. The way Peter’s words no longer came immediately anymore, thoughts lagging behind fatigue before ever reaching his mouth.

Most of all, he noticed the color — or lack of it.

Even now, Peter still looked painfully pale beneath the dim medbay lights. No amount of blankets or borrowed warmth could hide the hollowness left behind in his skin, his face still bearing the bleached aftermath of everything his body had lost.

For a fleeting second, the medbay felt far too large around the simple fact that the kid was still here filling it.

The soft blue glow from the nearby monitors caught along the stress carved into Tony’s features, tracing faint lines of tension that hadn’t left his face in days. It was nothing short of a miracle they’d managed to stabilize Peter after all that — with stabilized being a generous word, at best.

He’d watched too many impossible outcomes tilt the right direction at the last possible second, watched too many miracles he didn’t deserve take place — relief was starting to feel less stable and much more borrowed.

He couldn’t deny wondering when the miracles were finally going to run out.

“Okay,” Tony gave a low grunt as he leaned awkwardly sideways off the hospital bed. “Fair enough.”

Without looking, his hand reached blindly toward the chair stationed beside him, reaching across the impressive pile of folded blankets stacked there.

“Turns out when you almost completely drain the tank,” he said as he fumbled around, “the internal thermostat gets a little… unreliable.”

His fingers caught on another blanket at last, his body nearly twisting entirely at the hip to make it happen.

Beneath that square-folded blanket, a hardcover book shifted and slid halfway free — its red cover and gold lettering briefly catching the muted overhead lights before Tony absently shoved it farther onto the chair cushion to keep it from falling.

“Ah, there it is.” He tugged the blanket free with mild triumph before settling himself back against the raised bedrest with a low grunt. “Blanket number five.”

A weak sound escaped Peter that might’ve been laughter, though the violent shivering kept it from fully forming.

“Don’t let the privilege get to your head, Underoo’s.” Tony spread the additional blanket carefully over Peter, layering the deep blue across faded burgundy with practiced precision, tucking the edges securely along his sides and up around his shoulders to trap what little heat his body still insisted on producing.

Peter practically melted beneath it.

“T-that’s nice,” he mumbled weakly, eyes slipping shut again. His shoulders loosened first underneath the cocoon of wool, then the tightness around his mouth eased as he settled deeper into the mattress and Tony’s side alike. “That’s way better…thanks.”

Tony leaned back once more against the raised bedrest, one arm folding loosely across his middle while the other rested near Peter beneath the blankets. His ankles crossed lazily near the end of the bed.

“Glad to assist,” he replied casually. “But don’t thank me. I’m more on the weapons-grade engineering side of operations.” His hand gestured vaguely toward the mountain of blankets engulfing Peter. “Luxury comfort accommodations fall under Potts Industries. She seems to be the only one who actually prepares for scenarios like these.”

The words left something heavier behind them. Quietly, wordlessly, Tony reached over and smoothed a wrinkle from the blanket gathered near Peter’s leg — more to occupy his hands than anything else; suddenly having the urge to fix something in need of fixing.

“I don’t think I even knew we owned alpaca wool,” he admitted after a moment.

Peter’s smile faltered almost as quickly as it appeared. The mention of Pepper settled heavily behind his tired eyes, guilt threading through the blood-loss fog almost instantly.

“Sorry again…” Peter turned his head slightly toward Tony, heavy eyes flickering up. “…for ruining your wedding,” he added, like the clarification was necessary.

A tired breath slipped out of him as his head rolled back against the pillow once more.

“Kinda been on an unlucky streak lately.”

Tony settled back against the bed once he’d finished rearranging the blankets, his shoulders sinking heavily into the support as the strain of the last year finally showed through the cracks a little. Too many disasters had stacked themselves back-to-back without ever really giving him room to recover from the last one before the next arrived, and now the exhaustion sat visibly in the lines around his eyes — once sharper in his youth, with those days seeming further behind him as time went on.

“Pete, you’re a smart kid,” Tony said, his thumb tapping lightly against the back of Peter’s hand beneath the blankets. “Smart enough to know that I’m famously intelligent myself, so I’m not about to sit here and waste my time, energy and effort denying the very obvious pattern of horrifying luck surrounding you. Frankly, pretending otherwise at this point would be an insult to both our intelligence.”

The words sat strangely heavy on Tony’s chest the moment they left him. His thumb slowed against the back of Peter’s hand, gaze drifting unfocused toward the rain-streaked windows while memory clawed briefly at the edges of his thoughts.

Guilt settled there like shrapnel; old, familiar, and impossible to pull free.

“This wasn’t on you, though,” he said, his voice worn thin.

Beneath the blankets, his hand remained loosely draped over Peter’s, cautious not to disturb the taped catheters threaded along his arm. His thumb shifted once against Peter’s knuckles in an absent, grounding motion before falling still again.

Beside him, Peter curled a little deeper into the nest of blankets without seeming to realize he was doing it, shoulders rounded inward beneath the wool.

“I just…I don't know.” Peter’s voice cracked in pitch as his brow tightened faintly. “Maybe, I-I could've done something different. Maybe if I’d been less distracted…or more focused, or...paid more attention to what was around me, or…”

His eyes stayed lowered as he spoke, fixed somewhere on the folds of wool instead of Tony. A brief silence followed, heavy with the effort it seemed to take just to keep putting his thoughts into words.

“I keep getting myself into trouble, Mr. Stark,” he admitted quietly, the words barely carrying above the steady hum of monitors. “Keep getting hurt ‘cause I’m not…” He trailed off again, frustration and sluggishness tangling together. “..y’know.”

Tony’s brow lifted faintly, confusion softening almost immediately into patient attentiveness as he waited him out instead of interrupting.

“If I’d noticed Dimitri sooner,” Peter muttered at last, his words beginning to slur together at the edges, “maybe I wouldn't gotten turned into a human shish-kebab down in that bunker.”

Tony’s eyes slid shut briefly, equal parts exhausted and deeply offended on principle that the kid could describe near-fatal impalement like a badly reviewed barbecue experience.

“And if I’d caught Norman in the parking garage before —”

“Hey.” Tony cut in before the thought could finish forming. His hand tightened once against Peter’s, grounding and firm. “Gonna stop you right there, spiderling. You don’t get to carry this entire disaster on your own.”

Peter stayed quiet after that. Which, coming from Peter, usually meant disagreement severe enough that even his body lacked the energy to argue it properly.

Tony knew the pattern too well not to recognize it. The instinctive need to shoulder every catastrophe personally. The desperate mental rewinding, searching for the exact second things could’ve been fixed if only he’d been better, faster, smarter.

A slow breath left through his nose as he leaned his head back more fully against the raised bedrest, gaze drifting toward the ceiling instead of the kid beside him.

“Listen…” Tony muttered after a second. “I had enough security around that chapel to qualify as a small military occupation. Nobody got into that building unless they were cleared six different ways and personally approved. Tiny guest list. Private ceremony. Promised Potts we’d keep things small and quiet for once.” A faint trace of humor surfaced beneath the heaviness in his tone. “Which, apparently, the universe took as a personal challenge.”

His free hand lifted briefly, knuckles tapping against the housing unit embedded on his chest — an old reflex he’d never quite managed to break whenever guilt settled too heavily in his lungs. The motion felt faintly unfamiliar now that there was something solid beneath his sternum again instead of the hollow emptiness he’d learn to expect.

“After Wakanda, we should’ve kept you further out of the spotlight. We knew Osborn was looking for a way to get to you,” he admitted, his gaze drifting briefly toward the overcast view beyond the windows. The late-autumn sky beyond the glass sat thick with rain clouds, the kind of bleak weather that had settled over the compound for days now. “I guess, in the end…I didn’t exactly anticipate him pulling the world’s creepiest parking garage chloroform routine on you.”

His fingers stopped tapping after a moment, lingering briefly against the housing unit before drifting back down toward the blankets again.

Something shifted faintly through Tony’s expression as his gaze went toward the chair beside the bed — toward the dark red hardcover half-buried beneath folded blankets.

For a second, he could see the passage exactly as it appeared on the page.

 

‘Attack him where he is unprepared. Appear where you are not expected.’

 

Deep down, Tony knew he should’ve recognized that Osborn wasn’t the kind of enemy who announced himself with explosions first. He’d spent too long bracing for spectacle and not enough time preparing for patience, manipulation. Strategy.

They’d relaxed in all the wrong places, and the cost of that mistake was currently shivering beneath five blankets beside him.

“You’re not the only one who should’ve handled things differently there,” Tony muttered, his head tipping back against the raised bedrest again, eyes drifting shut like he was done litigating the past for a while. “Trust me, if we start handing out blame assignments around here, we’re gonna need a spreadsheet and color-coded tabs.”

Peter didn’t seem won over.

“I know, I just…” Peter’s face tightened weakly, exhaustion doing little to hide the guilt working underneath it. “Feels like if I’d —”

“Kid.” Tony stopped the thought before it could finish building momentum. His thumb pressed once against the back of Peter’s hand, steady and grounding. “You and me turning this into some Olympic-level self-blame competition isn’t helping anybody. Believe me, I’ve got years of experience in that game. Was basically undefeated for a while.” A faint twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth. “All it really does is burn energy you currently cannot afford to be spending. You’re basically running on premium-grade applesauce and whatever bodily fluids SHIELD can legally pump into you.”

Peter quieted again after that, though Tony could practically see the disagreement still turning somewhere behind his tired eyes. The kid still looked unconvinced, but the sluggish delay behind every thought finally kept him from launching into his usual hour-long rambles.

As it stood, sluggishness and blood loss were finally doing what Tony’s lectures couldn’t. Keeping Peter Parker’s mouth shut.

“So for right now,” Tony continued on, glancing briefly toward the softly humming monitors beside the bed, “the objective’s actually pretty straightforward. You refill approximately all the blood in your body — quite the task ahead of you, I’d say — and I make sure homicidal Frankenstein billionaires stay the hell away from you for more than five minutes at a time. Manageable goals. Baby steps.”

Peter let out another tired breath, shoulders sinking deeper into the blankets around him. His gaze stayed fixed somewhere near the rise and fall of the wool gathered over his chest, his expression distant in a way Tony didn’t particularly like.

“It’s still so crazy to think about,” he finally broke the silence with an admission almost too quiet to hear. “That he…took all my blood. Just like that.” His brow pinched faintly, the thought coming together in slow pieces as he tried to force it aloud. “A-and Oz, and-and if Norman did..did actually kill Har…”

The words faltered apart before he could finish them.

“Hey, hey, easy. None of that,” Tony interjected, the evenness in his tone practiced and intentional. “Facts first, Parker. We deal with what we know, what’s in front of us — anything else, we get to later. And right now, I’m looking at these monitors and seeing enough spikes to make me think your heart might file a formal complaint if we push it any further. Your circulatory system’s basically running on enough of Rogers’ plasma to qualify you for patriotic side effects. So let’s maybe not take things out for a stress-test tonight, capiche?”

Peter drew in a careful breath, and Tony took it as proof the kid occasionally listened to him about a thing or two. One more slower inhale followed, the strain on his face gradually leaving his expression as the noises of the medbay gave his mind something steadier to latch onto.

The room sounded different now than it had those first days — calmer, quieter, less frantic. The monitors no longer shrieked sudden alarms every few minutes. Nurses weren’t rushing in and out at all hours anymore. Even the steady mechanical rhythm surrounding the bed had changed; slower, controlled.

Stable.

Peter swallowed hard against the tightness gathering in his throat. The word settled strangely in his chest — because stable meant there had been a point where he wasn’t, and it was one thing to end up turned into spider-barbecue by a wannabe Bond villain, but if he’d actually died for good after everything Wakanda had done to bring him back the first time…

A harsh lump nearly choked his next breath. God, there just wasn’t a version of that where he wouldn’t feel like a complete, total, absolute screw-up.

And somehow, despite all of that, he still wound up here. Trapped in another hospital bed beneath a web of wires after nearly getting himself killed, again.

At least after all this, Mr. Stark had finally come to agreement with him on his bad luck.

Worse still, was Steve.

Even though the second hospital bed beside his was gone now — wheeled out sometime after Peter finally stabilized enough that everyone stopped hovering like he might disappear if they blinked wrong — he still couldn’t stop seeing it there whenever he looked at the empty space.

His throat worked once before he finally spoke again, quieter this time.

“...is — uh...” Peter’s brow pinched faintly as he worked past the dryness in his throat, never quite opening his eyes as the words finally found their way out. “Is Steve gonna be okay? After all that?”

The question didn’t need clarification. Tony knew exactly what Peter meant — he’d spent the last five days watching the answer nearly go the wrong way more than once.

Some of those first nights still sat unpleasantly sharp in his memory. The third time Steve’s heart rhythm crashed hard enough to send the medbay scrambling into motion, Tony had been dangerously close to siding with Barnes and physically disconnecting the machines himself — ‘Captain’s Orders’ long since be damned.

He could still remember waking out of half-sleep to alarms and pounding footsteps, Bruce snapping orders while Helen argued furiously that Steve needed to be pulled off the lines before he pushed himself past the point of recovery. And through all of it, Rogers — pale, exhausted, stubborn to a fault — had still kept insisting to continue until the second they stabilized Peter.

Somehow, despite how badly both of them had looked towards the end, they got through it.

Tony huffed quietly through his nose at the thought, the sound carrying no real humor behind it. They barely got through it.

“Don’t go worrying about Cap, kid,” Tony answered at last, a quiet sniff following a beat later as he gave Peter’s hand one last firm squeeze beneath the blankets before letting it go. He leaned back more fully against the raised bedrest, folding both arms loosely across his chest. “If there's anything seventy years stuck in ice has taught SHIELD, it's that Rogers is annoyingly difficult to kill. A little plasma loss isn't going to do him in.”

Tony deliberately chose not to elaborate on the fact that ‘a little’ in this situation had actually translated into an amount Bruce described as ‘medically horrifying’ sometime around day two. But after seeing Peter’s monitors spike hard enough at the mere mention of Osborn’s son, Tony figured now probably wasn’t the ideal moment to start discussing just how close Rogers had pushed himself trying to keep him alive.

Truthfully, Tony still hadn’t entirely figured out what to do with that himself. Somewhere between Wakanda and the last five days, he’d realized Peter wasn’t just his kid anymore, and that realization made everything feel far more complicated than ever before.

“Besides,” Tony added, eyes drifting shut again, “Barnes has been hovering around him like an overprotective guard dog built in a Soviet laboratory for three straight days. Pretty sure Steve’s bigger problem right now is surviving that more than anything else.”

A faint smile tugged weakly at Peter’s mouth at the image of Bucky stalking Steve around the compound like an armed hospice nurse. It faded almost as quickly as it came, something heavier settling into its place instead.

Even though the haze reduced time into scattered flashes and half-formed memories, Peter still remembered enough pieces to understand the shape of what’d happened. There were moments, glimpses, where he’d catch Steve lying pale in the hospital bed beside his beneath harsh lights. Moments where he’d hear voices arguing somewhere beyond the doorway while machines hummed and cycled beside him. There were tense expressions people wore whenever they thought he was too out of it to notice.

But he knew enough — enough to know Steve had pushed himself far harder than anyone had wanted him to. Enough to know it had been for him.

Somehow, no matter how badly he screwed things up, people still kept showing up for him. And yet Peter still didn’t understand it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all seeing something in him he’d somehow missed entirely.

“Why…?” The word rasped weakly from his throat before trailing off, too tired to fully shape the question aloud.

Tony understood it anyway.

His gaze drifted away toward the curtains that covered the windows, the faint glow from the housing unit in his chest casting a muted light beneath his jaw. Exhaustion sat heavily across his features beneath it, carved into the shadows under his eyes.

For a moment, Peter noticed he looked strangely older. More worn down. Like sleep alone couldn’t fix whatever had been taken out of him.

“Because you needed it,” Tony answered quietly, after a beat. “And because he was capable of giving it.” His jaw shifted once before he added, voice roughened faintly at the edges, “To him, that made it the right thing to do.”

Peter’s gaze dropped again after that, his attention fixed on the blankets gathered across his chest as the words settled. A small nod followed a second later — slower this time, thoughtful in a way that made it seem less like agreement and more like he was carefully trying to store away the meaning of what he’d been told before the haze in his mind swallowed it whole.

Like maybe, somewhere beneath all the guilt and self-doubt still weighing him down, the realization was finally beginning to settle in that Captain America hadn’t nearly run himself into the ground out of sheer obligation.

Maybe, just maybe, the potential they saw in him meant something.

Peter had no way of processing that pressure right now.

“...’kay,” he murmured.

So he didn’t.

The room settled back into silence after that, broken only by rain against the windows and the soft chirp of nearby monitors.

Peter’s eyes drifted heavier by degrees, blinking slower each time before settling half-lidded beneath the dim lights. His head tipped slightly toward Tony’s shoulder without seeming to realize he was doing it.

A long minute passed before his voice surfaced again, rough with sleep this time.

“..Steve’s really g’nna be okay?” he mumbled, the words blurring together as drowsiness pulled harder at him.

Tony let out a quiet huff through his nose, the closest thing to a laugh he seemed capable of managing.

“Rogers is gonna be fine, kid. In time. Like you.” His arms stayed loosely folded across his chest as he tipped his head sideways toward Peter, nudging lightly back against where the kid had drifted against his shoulder without noticing. One brow lifted faintly as he looked down at him. “Now, you were telling me about your unauthorized aerial roller coaster ride. I believe there was a very heroic midair rescue involved that you were about to compliment me extensively for?”

“You’re so extra, Mr. Stark,” Peter mumbled back, the words softened by fatigue but carrying the ghost of a grin with them. His shoulders shifted weakly beneath the mountain of blankets, nudging lazily against Tony’s side like he didn’t even realize he was doing it anymore.

“I save in style, is what you mean,” Tony corrected without missing a beat. He let his head settle back against the raised pillow beside Peter’s, gaze drifting shut again as the corner of his mouth tugged upward beneath the weariness carved across his features.

Beside him, Peter let out something that sounded suspiciously like a sleepy laugh through his nose.

“It was really cool,” he admitted, following a beat, the last of the earlier excitement fading into something smaller and more sincere. Peter’s smile lingered as his eyes stayed closed, his head tipping slightly toward Tony against the pillow.

“Mhm-hm,” Tony hummed in response, low and automatic beneath the quiet rhythm of rain and machinery.

Somewhere out in the hallway, faint footsteps approached, unhurried enough that neither Tony nor Peter reacted much beyond a slight shift of attention.

A moment later, the automatic doors parted open with a soft hydraulic hiss, letting in a brief wash of brighter hallway light before dimming shut again behind the figure lingering near the entrance.

“Knock knock,” Rhody announced quietly, pause on stepping in as his eyes flicked first toward the monitors, then toward Peter awake in the bed. An easy smile followed suit. “Well, would you look at that. The patient’s awake and Tony hasn’t stress-aged himself into a crypt keeper yet. That’s what I like to call progress.”

Without opening his eyes, Tony responded flatly, “I heard that.”

A quiet chuckle slipped out of Rhodey as he finally stepped fully into the room, the soft mechanical whir of his leg braces threading easily into the steady chorus of monitors and infusion pumps surrounding the bed.

“How you holding up, Pete?” Rhodey asked, his voice purposefully staying light, but his eyes still flickering instinctively toward the monitor readings; his worry still slipping through in the brief glance he gave them.

Peter made a miserable face from somewhere beneath the blanket mountain that cocooned him.

“Like a gas station slushie,” he mumbled, half his mouth resting against wool blankets that garbled his words. “I think my organs may be freezing over.”

“That tends to happen when your body realizes it’s currently operating several liters below factory settings,” Tony said without opening his eyes, shoulder still pressed warm against Peter’s. “Why do you think we’ve been sharing personal space all day, hm? You think I usually let people hang out inside my bubble this long?” He made a face, mostly out of discomfort as he readjusted himself in the bed. “Absolutely not. This is a medically sanctioned exception. Basic thermodynamics. External heat source, reduced energy expenditure, improved temperature stabilization — it’s all very scientific.”

Peter’s eyes slid open just enough to level a tired squint in Tony’s direction. “That’s…not how thermodynamics works.”

“Excuse you.” Tony opened one eye to look back at him. “I have several degrees and awards that say I’m allowed to redefine thermodynamics whenever I want.”

“Pretty sure you’re just…warm, Mr. Stark,” Peter mumbled, voice muffled against the blankets. “…human heater w’th an ego prob’em.”

“Arc reactor adds at least ten degrees of premium heating efficiency,” Tony informed him, tapping casually on the housing unit. “Luxury feature up in here.”

“You two sound like a science podcast nobody asked for.” Rhodey shook his head as he made his way further into the room, his eyes drifting toward the nearby chair and the frankly concerning stack of folded fabric waiting there in reserve.

He visibly stopped mid-step at the sight of it.

“You got enough blankets there, Pete?” he asked with a faint grin tugging at his voice, his eyes gesturing to what he spoke off — not that Peter seemed to need any further explanation.

“Mr. Stark ‘eeps addin’ m-more more every time I shiver.” Peter shifted deeper beneath the blankets until only the top half of his face was visible.

“Correct,” Tony answered immediately. “And I’m prepared to escalate further.”

Rhodey shook his head to himself as he crossed the room, glancing once from the mountain of blankets engulfing Peter to the additional stockpile waiting nearby the bay window. 

“…Tony,” he said slowly, eyeing the reserve piled neatly beside the bay window before eyeing the man in question, “did you build a backup blanket system?”

Tony kept his eyes shut, expression perfectly calm beneath the dim medbay lights while his arms remained folded across his chest.

“I prefer the term contingency planning.”

Rhodey quirked an eyebrow, high. “You’re about ten minutes away from opening a hibernation chamber in here.”

A tired chuckle escaped Peter before dissolving into another rough shiver. Tony’s eyes flicked toward him instantly at the movement, amusement fading just slightly at the edges as he unfolded his arms and tugged the nearest blanket higher around Peter’s shoulders; the motion practiced enough to suggest it wasn’t the first time he’d done it today.

Rhodey watched the exchange quietly from near the foot of the bed. Something gentler flickered briefly beneath the humor in his expression before he exhaled through his nose and reached out, giving Peter’s bundled foot a light squeeze through the mountain of blankets to pull his attention.

“Hey, Pete,” he said, a little softer, jerking his head slightly toward the hallway. “Mind if I borrow Iron Man here for a second? Promise to bring him back.”

Tony stirred slightly at that. He glanced toward Rhodey first, then back down toward the exhausted teenager cocooned beside him.

Peter already looked halfway asleep again anyway, heavy-lidded and pale beneath the medbay glow, clearly having blown through whatever limited battery life he’d started the conversation with. A nod of his head was the best he could manage for a response.

“Don’t bother answering,” Tony still said, a sigh pushing out of his chest as he began the slow, reluctant process of untangling himself from the cramped hospital bed.

“That,” he informed Peter while shifting stiffly upright, “is Rhodey’s version of pretending this is optional.”

Rhodey made a face

“I was being polite,” he corrected dryly.

“If he turns into a human popsicle while I’m gone,” Tony muttered as he carefully swung his legs over the side of the mattress, one hand briefly bracing against the edge of the bed while every joint in his body loudly objected to the movement, “I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how thermodynamics works,” Rhodey replied.

“See,” Tony pointed vaguely at him as he pushed himself upright, “this is why nobody asked for your help with the blanket strategy.”

Rhodey snorted, stepping aside while Tony shuffled toward the doorway with all the enthusiasm of a man whose spine had permanently fused to hospital furniture sometime around hour thirty-six.

Almost on cue, another shiver worked its way through Peter beneath the mountain of blankets, subtle at first before it reached the monitors, sounding a faint chirp in protest.

“Hey.” Tony immediately pointed at him mid-step without even turning fully around. “None of that. Heating blanket’ll be back in active service momentarily.”

Peter managed what was probably supposed to be an eye roll from somewhere inside the blanket cocoon, though whatever sarcasm he intended lost most of its strength somewhere beneath the exhaustion pulling him steadily back under.

“We need to bundle you up.” Tony paused once at the doors, one hand braced briefly against the frame as another thought caught up with him. His brow furrowed slightly before he glanced back over his shoulder toward the bed. “Where’s your hoodie? The blue one with your school logo plastered across it like unpaid advertising?”

Peter blinked at him slowly, the question clearly taking an extra second or two to fight its way through the haze in his head.

“…th’nk I left it ‘n the lounge.”

Tony immediately jerked a thumb toward the hallway. “I’ll go grab it.”

A final glance back toward the bed was all Tony allowed himself before he stepped out into the hallway beside Rhodey, the medbay doors sliding shut behind them with a muted hydraulic hiss that dulled the sound of monitors and rain into something distant.

The hallway outside the medbay carried the subdued noises of a hospital wing in the middle of the afternoon — nurses moving quietly between stations with the occasional murmur of voices kept instinctively low around recovery rooms.

Neither of them said anything until they’d moved further down the wing, out of easy earshot of the room they’d just left behind.

“Listen,” Tony rolled one stiff shoulder as they started walking, the movement accompanied by a subtle wince he pretended not to notice. “If this is about Quill and them having extended their stay after the wedding, I’d like it officially documented that I voted against alien visitation rights. I’m sure the liberal agenda says I’m supposed to embrace intergalactic cultural exchange —”

Without missing a beat, Rhodey interrupted, “It’s not about Quill.”

The confusion crossed Tony’s face immediately, sharp and unguarded in a way it rarely managed to anymore. His brow furrowed as they slowed to a stop beside one of the nurses stations.

“I’m leaving.” Rhodey’s jaw tightened before he folded his arms across his chest, shoulders settling into posture like he’d already accepted the conversation wasn’t going to go well. “Arlington, Virginia assignment came through three hours ago.”

Tony stared at him for a beat, thumb catching briefly against the edge of his goatee as he rubbed a hand across his mouth.

“Not okay with that,” he finally said.

Rhodey’s expression softened for half a second. “Wasn’t asking permission.”

“Mm. Don’t like that sentence.” Tony shot him a look, leaning against the counter while the faint blue glow beneath his charcoal crewneck reflected dimly across the surface. “Try again, with fewer federal undertones.”

Rhodey’s gaze drifted briefly toward the med-techs moving down the hallway before settling back on Tony.

“Listen,” he started, shifting his weight subtly, arms folding tighter across the fabric of his polo shirt. “I know it’s bad timing —”

“Terrible,” Tony cut in, sharply. “Keep going.”

Rhodey just barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. After decades of knowing Tony Stark, he’d gotten pretty fluent at translating irritation, sarcasm, and sleep deprivation into actual cooperation without taking any of it personally.

“The OsCorp integration deal finalized this morning, and it goes without saying that changes things,” he continued, the seriousness settling more visibly across his expression as he finally moved toward the point. “Now that the D.O.D officially folded OsCorp’s weapons divisions into federal jurisdiction, somebody has to oversee the transition process from the military side. Security clearances. Experimental review boards. Federal acquisition oversight.”

Tony’s mouth flattened instantly.

“They picked you.”

“They picked the guy who already survived one OsCorp disaster firsthand,” Rhodey corrected, dryly, seemingly just as displeased. “And somebody who knows enough about enhanced weapons programs to recognize when corporate executives start lying straight through their teeth.”

“Oh, okay, great.” Tony let out a hollow breath through his nose, exhaustion and irritation tangling together beneath the words. “So your new job is basically making sure the Pentagon’s supervillain partnership stays organized. All just because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut about babysitting the Galactic Space Pirates — first I lose two of the strongest Avengers to a Scottish retirement plan, now the government’s stealing you for classified OsCorp babysitting. This year can actually go to hell.”

Rhodey gave him a look. “You done spiraling for thirty seconds?”

Tony glanced sideways at him. “No, but continue anyway.”

“That merger cuts both ways,” he pressed on, the glow from the nurses station monitors reflecting across his expression as staff moved quietly through the recovery wing around them. “Ross wanted OsCorp folded into federal oversight so fast enough that nobody stopped to think about what happens when private defense money suddenly becomes government paperwork. And who was just assigned to that paperwork?”

Tony’s jaw shifted once, otherwise having gone unusually still. “What exactly does that mean?”

“It means the second those contracts finalized between Ross and OsCorp, every buried funding stream attached to Osborn’s ‘research programs’ stopped being protected corporate information and started becoming federally reviewable.” Rhodey’s expression tightened, though this time there was something sharper buried beneath it — the first real hint of optimism Tony had seen since the conversation started. “And trust me, there are a lot of people in D.C. sweating bullets over that realization right now.”

Tony frowned. "Sounds a little late for buyer’s remorse.”

Rhodey shook his head, some of the tension easing beneath a faint pull at his lips. “You don’t get it, think big. Think large-scale, Tones. Investment chains. Shell corporations. Operational funding streams. Every off-book dollar that touched that bunker in the Atlantic...all of it’s traceable now.”

Tony’s expression slowly lost its edge, resignation creeping into his gaze as he looked across the nurses station.

“Rhodey, it doesn’t matter. We already tried the courtroom route, we tried to do things the right way,” he said, a subtle shake of his head speaking to the frustration that leaked into his words. “Now Ross has half the government welded onto OsCorp while Osborn’s out there running around as a twelve-foot mutated science experiment. Feels a little late to keep pretending the legal system’s gonna suddenly grow a spine — and last I checked, courts don’t exactly love convicting defense contractors with federal clearance levels.”

“That’s exactly why this matters,” Rhodey cut in, pressing his hand open-palmed against the counter to get Tony’s attention. “Ross tying OsCorp into D.O.D oversight is what cracked the vault open in the first place. Every active and preexisting research program connected to federal contracts triggered mandatory transparency requirements the second the acquisition finalized. Meaning disclosure laws just ripped open every financial trail tied to those experiments of Osborn’s — Tony.” Rhodey paused, just long enough for Tony to look back at him. “For the first time in years, OsCorp’s dirty money trail just stopped being untouchable. Ross thought he was shielding them — they spent years building bunkers in the ocean to hide this stuff. And he just forced the doors open with federal paperwork and a signature.”

Rhodey held his gaze for another second before pushing off the nurses station, jerking his head once for Tony to walk with him.

“I’m uploading copies of the disclosures to your private server tonight, before oversight committees start redacting the files into pages of black boxes,” he said as they started moving again, their steps following at a steady but casual pace through the medical wing. “And trust me — with what’s buried in there, they will. Quickly.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed as he fell into step beside him, one hand dragging back across his jaw while the other stayed buried in his jeans pocket. The faint glow beneath his shirt pulsed dimly against the hallway floor with each step.

“Go through the files tonight, don't put them off. I mean it.” Rhodey glanced toward him briefly as they passed another glass-fronted recovery room. “Because the courts be damned, there’s enough in there to bury Osborn for the rest of his life.”

Tony stopped walking first.

“Rhodey,” he exasperated, “we’re way past lawsuits at this point. You saw what that thing turned into.” Frustration finally broke more visibly across Tony’s face as Rhodey turned back toward him. ”We don’t even know where Osborn is right now, and I don’t think federal indictments are exactly his top priority anymore.”

“Exactly,” Rhodey replied immediately, an elevator chiming softly somewhere behind them. “So work both angles.”

At that, Tony stayed quiet. The elevators sat only a few yards ahead from them, metallic doors reflecting the cold overhead lights while a nearby display panel glowed softly against the otherwise subdued hallway. 

“You keep looking for him. Don’t stop. But while everybody else is focused on the manhunt, start tearing the company apart behind the scenes.” Rhodey’s jaw tightened enough to pulsate the muscle in his chin. “Because we’re not stopping this D.O.D merger now, we can’t. That ship sailed this morning the second Ross and the courts signed ink with OsCorp.”

Another elevator tone sounded quietly. Something heavy settled visibly through Tony’s posture at that, the fight leaking out of his expression in one slow exhale.

“Jesus,” he muttered quietly, scrubbing a hand down across his mouth before letting it fall back to his side. “They really signed off.”

“Listen…” Rhodey’s posture shifted, the quiet metallic brace of his legs accompanying the step he took closer, away from the elevators and towards his friend. “I can’t tell you what OsCorp’s planning to hand Ross once their tech starts getting folded into weapons development. All I know is Ross will eat up anything he can get his hands once that stream starts flowing. And neither of us is naïve enough to think he'll stop at what he needs.”

Tony went still at that, the edge of his expression hardening beneath the fluorescent lights while Rhodey lingered near the elevator alcove.

“We already know Osborn successfully created Oz. We saw what that did,” Rhodey’s voice lowered slightly as he moved another step closer, the tension in it settling heavier, reaching the part neither of them wanted to say out loud. “But this stops being just about Norman the second the government starts absorbing his infrastructure.”

Tony’s eyes stayed fixed ahead down the fluorescent hallway.

A beat passed.

The elevator doors slid open beside them with a soft glow spilling across the polished floor. Rhodey glanced toward it before finally stepping away from Tony, the restrained mechanical movement of his leg braces accompanying the few steps he took toward the open car.

“Don’t get so locked onto Osborn that you miss what’s sitting underneath him,” he insisted, turning back toward Tony before stepping fully into the elevator. One hand settled briefly against the metal frame while the fluorescent light caught faintly against the braces over his pant leg. “Norman’s the face of this thing right now, sure. But OsCorp’s the reason he ever got this far in the first place. If he disappears tomorrow, the company doesn’t disappear with him. The contracts stays, the research stays. The people willing to weaponize all of it? They stay too.” The elevator chimed softly behind him. “So while you’re hunting Osborn, make sure somebody’s out there burning the machine down with him.”

Rhodey lingered another second in the open elevator before finally letting the doors close shut on him.

“Look at your server tonight, Tony.”

The elevator doors slid shut a moment later, carrying Rhodey toward a flight waiting for him, while Tony remained standing alone, his shoulders settling heavily as the hallway fell quiet.

His jaw tightened as he looked away, briefly toward the polished hallway floor, the faint blue glow beneath his shirt reflecting dimly across it. For the first time since the conversation started, the anger sitting behind his expression had somewhere to go besides a manhunt.

Tony wasn’t sure what to do with that just yet.

After another second, he turned to make his way towards the lounge with a tired exhale, mentally preparing himself for the scavenger hunt that inevitably followed anytime Peter claimed to know where he left something.

The kid really did have terrible luck with losing things.

 

---

 

The faint CLANK of Helen’s electronic tablet meeting the kitchen table broke the stillness of the penthouse kitchen, the device settling amid scattered half-empty coffee mugs and cold, discarded takeout containers.

“Alright,” Happy cut in before Helen could so much as open her mouth, punctuating the interruption with a light clap of his hands. “The good news is, she’s got good news. The bad news is, she’s got bad news.”

Helen shot him a look — perturbed, but professionally restrained — before lowering herself into one of the chairs at the table.

“Can you… please?” She lifted a hand silently, gesturing for him to sit as well. 

Happy hesitated only a second. His mouth twisted into a reluctant grimace before he finally relented, dragging a chair out across from Helen. The legs scraped loudly against the tile as he sat down beside May, tipping his head toward her in silent acknowledgment.

“Just trying to break the ice... is all,” he muttered, nodding toward the woman sitting next to him. “She’s been a 24/7 nervous wreck over here.”

May’s head snapped toward him immediately.

“I have not—!”

The protest died almost as quickly as it came. She exhaled hard through her nose, shoulders sagging as the fight drained out of her long before it ever sparked to life. The exhaustion had settled into every corner of her by now — in the stress locked hard behind her eyes, in the stiffness of how she held herself, the tight pull of her cardigan pulling at the steams in a way that practically turned it into a loose blanket.

The sigh did nothing to ease her tension.

May’s attention shifted back to Helen as she managed a faint, brittle smile that looked seconds away from collapsing entirely.

“Thank you, Dr. Cho, for taking the time to be here in person.”

Even now, frayed raw by days of fear and sleepless nights, May still managed to offer gratitude before anything else. The words came quiet and uneven, but sincere. After all, she knew it was what Parker's did best.

Helen felt something tighten painfully in her chest at the sight of her.

She could see that heart from a mile away.

“Of course, May,” she replied gently, her expression immediately softening. “I’m so sorry our updates have been so impersonal.” Her gaze lowered briefly, something regretful flickering across her face. “Under different circumstances, I would’ve never let this many days pass without seeing you directly myself.”

Her eyes flickered briefly toward the tablet sitting in the middle of the cluttered table. Phone calls, monitors, secondhand updates filtered through screens and speakers — none of it had been fair. Not when the woman’s nephew, practically a son to her from what she’d seen first hand, had been fighting for his life.

“It’s fine, it’s — I understand,” May rushed out immediately, the words tumbling over each other before Helen could say anything else. “You’ve been busy — completely swamped with all of this and-God, this kid, I can’t even imagine what you’ve all been dealing with, with everything he’s—”

She cut herself off hard enough that the words seemed to snag in her throat. One hand came up instinctively, fingers pressing briefly against her mouth as the color drained from her already exhausted face.

“Oh God, this isn’t because things got worse, is it?” The brittle composure she’d been clinging to cracked instantly, panic flooding into her expression. “Is that why you’re here? Things are bad, things got bad?”

“Hey, hey,” Happy cut in quickly, raising both hands in a calming gesture. “I said good news and bad news—”

“Is that the bad news?!” Her eyes widened toward Helen, glassy with panic before the doctor had even spoken again.

And just like that, whatever fragile calm had existed inside the penthouse evaporated.

“Oh my. No, no — May. May, May, please—” Helen leaned forward immediately, alarm flashing across her face as she lifted both hands instinctively, all but reaching over the kitchen table to try and get May to calm down.

Happy pointed a finger toward May without missing a beat.

“Told you she was a nervous wreck.”

“May,” Helen interjected quickly, trying — and only barely succeeding — to keep a smile from tugging at the corners of her mouth. “May, breathe for me.”

May pressed one hand hard against the center of her chest like she could physically steady her heartbeat that way, the other dragging up across her forehead as she bent forward in her chair. Her elbow braced against the edge of the table while she squeezed her eyes shut for half a second, shoulders tight enough to look painful beneath the cardigan wrapped around her.

“I am breathing,” she insisted — not very well.

Beside her, Happy turned in his chair to look at her fully now, one arm draped across the backrest behind her while concern and long-suffering amusement tangled together across his face.

His brows lifted higher the redder May’s face became. “You talking is exhausting the air you need to take a breath.”

“Happy, don’t you—!” May snapped upright just enough to glare at him across the tiny stretch of space between their chairs, frustration flashing hot through the panic still on her face. One hand flung vaguely in his direction while the other stayed pressed stubbornly against her chest.

Beside her, Happy kept his hand planted firmly between her shoulder blades anyway, rubbing slow circles through the fabric of her cardigan despite the look she gave him.

His expression stayed solemn as he nodded once toward Helen.

“See?”

May made an incredulous sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp before both hands dragged down over her face, hard enough to pull at her skin and knock her glasses askew. 

“Oh my God,” she muffled into her palms. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Please don’t,” Happy muttered, leaning back in his chair just slightly while keeping his hand against her shoulder blades. “I’ve had a rough week too.”

“May.”

The single word cut cleanly through the spiraling panic without ever rising in volume.

Helen’s expression had softened again, though there was something firmer underneath it now — calm in the way only doctors seemed capable of being. She leaned forward slightly over the cluttered kitchen table, making certain May actually looked at her instead of disappearing behind her hands again.

“He’s getting better,” she repeated, carefully. “That’s the good news.”

Rain streaked dimly down the penthouse windows behind her, city lights blurring gold and white against the gray afternoon, while the tablet sat forgotten between cold coffee cups and untouched takeout containers.

The words seemed to hit May all at once. And not gently.

A shaky breath escaped her as tension visibly drained from her shoulders in uneven waves, though not nearly enough to relax her completely. Her eyes squeezed shut briefly, chin dipping toward her chest as she tried — and failed — to fully collect herself again.

Helen offered her a small, reassuring smile.

“You said it yourself, I’m busy. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have the time, right?”

That finally did it.

May let out a broken exhale and collapsed forward, burying her face into her hands. The oversized sleeves of her cardigan swallowed half her fingers as she pressed her palms hard against her eyes beneath her glasses, embarrassed exhaustion radiating off her in waves.

“I’m sorry, I— I jumped to conclusions, I’m sorry,” she murmured from behind her hands, catching her glasses and nudging them back into place on the bridge of her nose. “I haven’t been sleeping well and—”

Happy immediately nodded toward her again.

“Nervous wreck.”

May’s head snapped up just enough to glare at him through her fingers.

“Will you—!”

The frustration dissolved before it could properly form. Another long, exhausted sigh left her instead, all sharp edges dulled down by fatigue.

Happy’s expression softened almost instantly.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered quietly. One of his hands came up to rub slow circles against her back, grounding her as she sagged into the chair again. The gesture was clumsy, awkwardly timed, entirely him — somehow exactly what she needed.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

The low hum of the Stark security system came from the ceilings, deeper in the tower, the muted glow of tech reflecting off polished marble countertops as the distant pulse of city lights reflected faintly through reinforced windows thirty stories above the city.

Eventually, and gently all the while, Helen pushed the tablet across the table toward them.

“I must say,” she began, “he proves to be very resilient in tough times.” A faint smile touched the corner of her mouth. “No matter how many times that boy terrifies everyone around him, he somehow always manages to claw his way back to us. Frankly, I’m beginning to suspect stubbornness may actually be one of his enhanced abilities.”

Helen folded her hands together atop the table, physician composure settling carefully back into place. But there was still something deeply human behind her eyes now — exhaustion recognizing exhaustion.

The motion immediately drew May’s attention back up again. 

“The first few days were…touch and go,” Helen admitted carefully, her fingers folding tighter together atop the table. “There were several points where we were more focused on keeping his body functioning hour to hour than we were on long-term recovery. But that’s started to change now. We’re finally seeing his system respond the way we’ve been hoping it would, very similar to the recovery pattern we observed in him back in April.”

She glanced briefly toward the tablet before continuing.

“Between the plasma donations from volunteers throughout the compound during initial stabilization, and Captain Rogers continuing direct donation support afterward...” Helen paused briefly, choosing her wording carefully. “It bought us time. Enough to maintain oxygen delivery throughout his tissues and prevent catastrophic organ damage. Honestly, without that donor response, we would not be sitting here discussing recovery right now.”

May’ fingers tightened instinctively against the sleeves bunched around her hands, while Happy’s hand stilled briefly against her back.

“But,” Helen continued gently, not letting the weight of the statement linger too long, “his hemoglobin levels have finally started rising steadily on their own. Slowly. Marginally. Anything is better than stagnation. His bone marrow activity has increased significantly, which means his body is now producing red blood cells faster than it’s consuming them. The stress markers we were monitoring in his organs are beginning to normalize, and his inflammatory response has decreased substantially over the last several days.”

Silence followed the explanation for exactly one heartbeat.

May blinked, once. “I understood maybe…eighty percent of that.”

To Helen’s credit, she smiled.

“It means his body is finally fighting its way back,” she translated softly.

The tension in May’s face cracked again — this time around something dangerously close to relief.

Helen leaned back slightly in her chair, fingers loosely intertwined atop the table. For the first time since she’d walked into the penthouse, some of the strain in her posture had eased as well.

“I try very hard not to make promises too early in situations like this,” she admitted carefully. “Especially with Peter. His physiology doesn’t exactly believe in predictable outcomes. We’ve seen it, more than once now.” The corner of her mouth tugged faintly upward, though the exhaustion beneath it remained. “But we’ve finally reached a point where I’m no longer waiting for everything to suddenly go wrong. And after the week we’ve had, that’s not something I say lightly.” A quiet breath left her. “I genuinely believe he’s going to recover from this.”

The effect the words had on May was immediate. Her head jerked upward so quickly it nearly startled Helen outright.

“So I can see him now?!” Hope flooded the question so quickly, so desperately, it bordered on hysterical.

May was already halfway forward in her chair before the sentence had even fully left her mouth, eyes wide and shining in a way that made it painfully obvious just how long she’d been holding herself together.

Happy’s expression fell almost immediately.

“May...” His hand found her shoulder gently, steadying rather than restraining. “It’s — that’s not what’s going on here.”

The excitement on her face flickered, her glasses slipping crooked and askew against the bridge of her nose as the realization slowly caught up to her. Her shoulders curled inward beneath the oversized cardigan as she settled back into the chair, hope dimming visibly from her expression piece by piece.

“I’ve told you,” Happy continued quietly, his thumb rubbing once against her shoulder through the thick knit fabric of the cardigan. “Tony’s told you — this Norman guy could really hurt you if he finds you. Or worse...” His jaw tightened slightly. “Use you to get to Peter.”

May’s mouth tightened hard at that, frustration and disbelief flashing together across her exhausted face.

“I’m not a stranger to that man,” she argued immediately. “He knows me — how many times do I have to say that?” Her hands lifted helplessly before dropping back against the table with a soft smack. “Harry and Peter were practically attached at the hip until the end of middle school. I knew that boy. I knew them, my husband and I knew that family.” Her voice wavered sharply. “And suddenly I’m supposed to believe Norman Osborn is enemy number one after he kidnapped Peter and drai—”

The sentence caught violently in her throat.

Nobody at the table seemed willing to finish that thought out loud.

May looked away hard, blinking rapidly before forcing herself onward.

“Me hiding out here is no different than me hiding out upstate with Peter,” she pressed, motioning vaguely around the penthouse. “There are SHIELD agents everywhere in that building, I’d be fine. Hell, I can’t even get a bagel from the cafeteria without passing six heavily armed people — at six am!”

“May,” Happy tried carefully.

“I’m serious!” she insisted, exhaustion making the edge in her voice sharper than intended. “I should be able to see him at least once!”

Her shoulders sagged almost immediately afterward, all the fight draining out of her as quickly as it had flared up. One trembling hand came up to rub against her forehead while she looked away from both of them, jaw clenched tight against the emotion climbing into her throat again.

Happy’s hand never left her shoulder.

“It’s not about when you’re there, May.”

The words landed exactly the way he knew they would. May fell silent immediately.

It didn’t take him saying anything else for her to understand what he meant. Happy wasn’t speaking hypothetically — he knew exactly what happened when dangerous men couldn’t get what they wanted directly and decided to go after the people standing nearby instead.

She knew the story; the bombing. The coma. The months of recovery Happy spent afterward, all from one wrong place at the wrong time, because someone had wanted to hurt Tony Stark.

And Peter had only been alone for a moment too.

The thought hollowed something out visibly behind her eyes. May’s shoulders folded inward beneath the oversized cardigan as she slowly looked back down at the table, all the anger draining out of her expression and leaving behind only shock and grief, and exhaustion too deep to fight through anymore.

A shaky breath escaped her.

Across the table, Helen observed the entire exchange quietly before finally speaking.

“You know…” she started to say, her eyes flickering toward the layers of Stark security quietly running through the tower around them. “In all the years I’ve worked with Tony, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lock a situation down this aggressively unless he genuinely believed the threat level was catastrophic.”

Helen glanced briefly toward the security monitor glowing dimly near the living room entrance before looking back to May.

May swallowed hard at that, eyes lowering further instead of lifting. Her fingers twisted tighter into the sleeves pooled around her hands while Happy’s hand squeezed gently against her shoulder.

“I’m not letting anything happen to you, May,” Happy quietly insisted, leaning a little closer beside her. “Neither is Tony.”

May let out a slow breath through her nose at that, tired enough that even her frustration didn’t have much force left behind it. She turned her head just enough to look at him over the rims of crooked glasses.

Happy’s face softened almost immediately beneath the look. “And neither will Peter.”

That one hit differently.

May’s expression crumpled into quiet pieces before she could stop it. She knew, with a certainty that settled painfully deep in her chest, that Peter would put himself in harm’s way a thousand times over before he ever let it reach her. Her mouth pressed tightly shut as her eyes immediately dropped, one trembling hand rising to cover part of her face while she fought unsuccessfully to keep the emotion from surfacing.

“Alright,” she murmured at last, defeated more than convinced. One hand dragged tiredly through her hair, pushing loose strands back from her face before falling uselessly into her lap again. “So what else is there? That’ve better have been the bad news.”

Happy's eyes flicked toward Helen. The look she returned carried the same quiet surprise he felt; neither of them had expected May to surrender the fight that easily.

“Actually...” A tired breath slipped out of Happy as he tipped his head back briefly against the chair, some of the tension finally easing from his face before he glanced toward Helen, and then back at May again. “Yeah, it was. Ripped off the band-aid with that one, huh?”

May went quiet for a moment, visibly forcing herself back under control before lifting her attention toward Helen again.

“We’re going to keep Peter in intensive care for at least a few more days,” Helen went on to say, posture straightening slightly as she guided the conversation back toward the update. “Right now our priority is making sure his vitals remain stable without external intervention. We’re monitoring oxygen saturation, cardiac strain, blood pressure, neurological responsiveness — all of it. We also need to make sure his body can sustain red blood cell production on its own before we even begin considering discharge. The plasma stabilized him, but plasma alone doesn’t replace oxygen-carrying capacity long term. His body still has to rebuild nearly everything he lost.”

The sheer scale of that seemed to settle heavily over the table. For a few seconds, the only sound inside the penthouse came from the low mechanical hum of Stark security systems running quietly through the walls and ceilings around them, an entire tower operating like a fortress while rain tapped softly against the distant windows overlooking Manhattan.

May swallowed hard, for a moment freezing still in her chair.

“And what’s that going to look like?” she quietly asked .

Helen exhaled slowly through her nose, something in her expression suggesting she’d been bracing for that question since the moment she walked in.

“I imagine,” she began, choosing her words with caution, “that a lot of his recovery is going to involve around how his body recalibrates itself after trauma at this scale. We’re talking about catastrophic hypovolemia, prolonged oxygen deprivation at the cellular level, severe metabolic strain — all without the benefit of conventional transfusion support. A traumatic fluid loss like this…”

Helen’s fingers shifted slightly against the edge of the tablet as she spoke, thumb absently brushing across the darkened screen while her gaze lowered to the table.

“Truthfully, there isn’t a great medical precedent for this. Especially not with Peter’s mutation complicating conventional treatment.”

Across the table, May visibly stilled at that, while Happy’s brows pulled together tightly.

“We know some of what to expect,” Helen continued. “Severe anemia. Chronic fatigue. Low iron reserves. Muscle weakness. Orthostatic instability — things like dizziness, fainting, difficulty regulating circulation when he stands or exerts himself…”

Each symptom seemed to land separately across May’s face, her fingers twisting harder into the oversized sleeves gathered around her hands while she listened.

“But honestly?” Helen admitted after a brief pause, her expression tightening faintly as she leaned back slightly in her chair. One finger tapped twice against the edge of the tablet before stilling entirely. “What concerns me most right now is the thermoregulation.”

“Jesus, the cold?” Happy seemed to catch the realization a beat before May, sounding almost if as he were irritated on Peter’s behalf. “Kid’s already freezing all the damn time, how much worse can it get?”

Helen’s eyes flicked toward him immediately, the look carrying the same restrained professional patience she’d been giving him on and off since walking into the penthouse.

“Yes, Mr. Hogan,” she replied dryly, one brow lifting faintly before her attention shifted back toward May. ”That’s precisely the problem.”

Her fingers folded together again atop the tablet.

“The spider-bite altered more than Peter’s strength and reflexes,” she explained. “His autonomic regulation changed with it too. We discovered during metabolic studies earlier this year that his thermoregulatory responses were already inconsistent once his core temperature started dropping, but after this level of blood loss, it’s significantly worse.” Her expression tightened faintly. “Right now his circulation and oxygen delivery are both compromised, his metabolic reserves are severely depleted, and his body’s expending enormous amounts of energy just trying to maintain organ function without being able to efficiently generate or retain heat at the same time.”

May let out a long, heavy sigh at that, one hand absently rubbing back and forth along her wrist beneath the oversized sleeve of her cardigan

“So until his blood count and metabolic stability recover…” Helen’s expression softened faintly, “…he’s going to feel cold almost constantly.”

May’s hand slowed against her wrist after that, her eyes lowering toward the table while she quietly processed the explanation. Beside her, Happy shifted slightly in his chair, the low hum of Stark systems filling the brief silence between them.

“He’s going to recover far slower than he’s going to be happy about,” Helen said after a moment, the faintest trace of weary sympathy crossing her face. “Not because he’s weak — honestly, the exact opposite. Peter’s healing response is extraordinary. We’ve seen it before, and without it, he wouldn’t have survived this. The fact that he’s alive at all after everything his body sustained is remarkable. By every metric, he should have had far less working in his favor than he did.”

Her fingers folded together more tightly atop the tablet.

“Frankly, Peter’s physiology bought us time, but Steve’s plasma support is what ultimately changed the trajectory. His healing factor was working as hard as it could; the plasma was what finally gave it the resources to start making meaningful progress. Without that support buying his body time to compensate, I’m not sure his system would’ve been able to sustain itself long enough for the regenerative response to catch up.” A faint crease appeared between Helen’s brows. “But like we observed eight months ago, his healing factor functions a lot like a muscle. It requires fuel. Oxygen. Nutrients. Energy reserves. And after everything his body’s endured, it simply doesn’t have enough left right now to sustain that level of regeneration continuously.”

The room fell quiet again after that. Rain tapped softly against the distant penthouse windows while the low mechanical hum of Stark systems continued steadily through the walls around them, constant and unobtrusive beneath the silence settling over the kitchen.

The conversation seemed to settle naturally after that, the worst of the explanation finally behind them. Helen reached for the tablet at last, fingertips brushing across the darkened screen as her posture eased by the smallest degree

“For now,” she concluded gently, folding her hands together again, “he remains under my care.”

A faint blue glow pulsed beneath the glass tabletop below them, security grids and encrypted Stark protocols momentarily illuminating in thin moving lines beneath their folded hands — the tower itself quietly alive, like a sentinel standing guard.

Helen’s mouth softened faintly at the sight of it.

“And under Tony’s watch.”

The room stayed quiet for a moment afterward.

May looked overwhelmed. Not panicked anymore, just exhausted in a way that seemed to reach bone-deep once adrenaline had finally started letting go.

“I can...” Her voice wavered faintly as she tried to organize the emotional wreckage currently happening inside her head. “I can digest all that. I think.”

Happy looked like he wanted to say something reassuring, but May was already standing before he could. The chair legs scraped harshly against the floor as she pushed herself upright.

“I need to check on the muffins.”

From where she sat across the table, Helen blinked.

May gave a vague gesture toward the kitchen island without fully looking at either of them.

“There are muffins.”

And with that deeply concerning explanation, she wandered off toward the stove, her sock-clad feet shuffling across the open-concept floor as she disappeared into the kitchen a few steps away, one hand absently pushing loose hair behind her ear.

Peering toward that direction, Helen noticed for the first time that nearly every inch of counter space had been overtaken. Mixing bowls sat abandoned beside used measuring cups, flour scattered in streaks across the dark marble countertops. An open bag of chocolate chips had collapsed onto its side near the stove, and what looked like at least two badly overbaked trays of cookies had been shoved toward the sink in defeat.

“She’s been stress baking,” Happy quietly explained, keeping his voice below average volume as he leaned back in his chair. “She’s not good at it. Terrible, actually.”

Another cabinet door opened with enough force to echo lightly through the penthouse. Helen looked toward the kitchen again, brows pulled together as she watched May move around with the frantic focus.

“But it’s an outlet,” Happy continued with a small shrug. “And apparently that’s important right now.”

Helen’s mouth twitched despite herself.

Both of them startled violently as May jerked backward from the oven, nearly dropping the muffin tray entirely.

“Ow!”

The pan rattled dangerously in her hands while heat rolled out from the open oven door into the already warm kitchen.

Somewhere between the flour-covered countertops and the aggressively overworked mixer sitting near the sink, May looked deeply offended that the muffins had apparently fought back.

Happy was halfway out of his chair immediately. “You okay, honey?”

“I’m fine!” May called back far too quickly.

Helen caught the immediate tightness behind the response, the strained kind of ‘fine’ people used when they were one inconvenience away from emotionally detonating.

A beat. Then, as Helen almost expected —

“Just make sure the smoke detector is turned off!”

The shrill chirp of the smoke detector erupted a second later, anyway.

The sound cut through the penthouse sharply, bouncing off marble and glass while the city glowed silently beyond the rain-streaked windows.

“May!” Happy groaned, already pushing himself up from the table.

“I forgot, okay!” May called back defensively from the kitchen, her voice muffled by oven mitts and smoke. “We have ours turned off at home!”

Another angry beep echoed through the penthouse.

“Why would you turn off your smoke detector?” Happy muttered as he climbed up onto the edge of the massive sectional sofa in the living room, one expensive leather cushion sinking dangerously beneath his weight as he stretched toward the detector mounted high against the ceiling, just barely in his reach.

Happy finally pressed a few buttons against the obscenely high-tech Stark smoke detector. The chirping died almost immediately. Because of course Tony Stark’s smoke detectors listened on the first try.

Blessed quiet settled back over the penthouse once more, broken only by the low mechanical hum threaded invisibly through the tower and the distant hiss of rainfall against reinforced windows.

Helen rose slowly from the table, one hand gathering the tablet against her side as she watched Happy attempt to navigate his way back off the dangerously compressed sofa cushions without breaking either his neck or several million dollars worth of furniture. The entire scene had devolved so thoroughly away from medical discussions and into domestic chaos that for a moment she simply stood there observing it all.

For the first time since arriving, she allowed herself to properly take in the living area around them as she stepped past Happy, who was still muttering under his breath while trying to awkwardly climb down from the Stark-brand death trap masquerading as a sectional sofa.

Her eyes slowly drifted across the sprawling penthouse, catching the blankets thrown over the back of the couch, half-finished tea forgotten on side tables beside scattered magazines May clearly hadn’t actually read. A knitting bag rested abandoned. Peter’s old backpack slumped carelessly near the coffee table — almost as if someone expected him to come get it later on.

It didn’t look like a safehouse. Not really.

It looked like someone had tried desperately hard to make it not feel like one.

The penthouse lights had dimmed automatically with the evening storm outside, washing the room in warm amber shadows and the soft blue glow of Stark security monitors. Rain streaked down the enormous windows overlooking Manhattan, blurring the city into watercolor smears.

For all its luxury, the place felt lived-in now.

Helen moved farther into the living area slowly, the sharp click of her heels against polished marble softened by abandoned blankets along the way. Near the couch, an open suitcase sat half-unpacked beside an armchair, clothes spilling haphazardly over the edges like May had stopped bothering to organize anything days ago.

A sweater sat neatly folded atop the clutter. Prescription bottles rested uncapped beside tangled phone chargers and folded SHIELD credentials someone had probably insisted she carry at all times.

And tucked carefully between it all —

Photographs.

Helen slowed without meaning to.

The corner of the photograph was barely visible beneath the sweater, enough for her to catch Peter’s unmistakable grin before her attention lingered there completely. Almost absently, she reached out and shifted the fabric back just enough to uncover the rest of the picture.

The moment the photograph came fully into view, her attention snagged on it completely.

It was Peter grinning ear to ear with his arm wrapped tightly around May at what looked like some crowded formal event, both of them flushed pink beneath neon lighting. Peter’s smile in the photo was so open, so painfully alive, that it caught Helen off guard for a second.

Young. Happy. Normal.

Helen realized with a faint pang that she rarely got to see Peter this way. Not outside of passing glimpses in the compound hallways or the occasional exhausted smile during follow-up evaluations.

Most of her memories of him lived beneath fluorescent hospital lighting — pale and bloodied on operating tables, hooked to cardiac monitors, stubbornly conscious through injuries that should’ve put him down twice as hard as they actually had.

She remembered, over half a year ago, racing into the medbay to find him half-conscious and impaled clean through the abdomen, the floor slick with blood while alarms screamed all around them. She remembered firing instructions across the room faster than the staff could keep up, she remembered the panic of discovering medications that should’ve worked on him didn’t — his mutation burning through sedatives, rejecting treatments, forcing them to improvise while his heart threatened to crash on the table.

It had been one hell of a way to meet the kid.

And then later, there he was again — brought to her, feverish and deteriorating beneath quarantine glass while something dangerous spread through his system so aggressively Helen had quietly prepared herself to lose him before sunrise. But somehow, impossibly, he survived that too.

He survived all of it. Stubborn, terrifyingly resilient kid that he was. For all the hours she'd spent studying his physiology, none of it had ever fully prepared her for Peter himself.

But the photo she saw —that version of Peter Parker felt almost unfamiliar. No bruises. No IV lines. In the medbay rooms, he had become numbers. Lab values. Oxygen percentages. Hemoglobin counts. 

But here, he was just someone’s kid again.

Just alive.

Helen felt her chest tighten unexpectedly as she smiled.

“Blueberry muffins?” May suddenly called from across the kitchen. “Anyone?”

Happy recoiled instantly.

And yet, without missing a beat —

“Yes, please!” he shouted back.

Helen instinctively opened her mouth to politely accept before Happy shot her a deeply serious look from across the room, shaking his head just once — and once was all that was needed.

“I’m good, thanks!” she called back instead.

The soft clatter of pans and cabinet doors followed before she reappeared carrying a muffin tray wrapped awkwardly in dish towels. The warm smell of blueberries drifted through the penthouse almost immediately, managing to overpower even the lingering scent of smoke.

“Alright,” May announced, sounding far more determined than confident as she carried the tray toward them. “Blueberry muffins, fresh out of the oven. I used real blueberries, at that. Like, real blueberries, washed them and everything.”

She shoved one directly into Happy’s hands before he could object.

“Here you go.”

Happy visibly hesitated when May held the muffin out toward him, his eyes flicking once toward the darkly overbaked top.

He forced a smile as he accepted it. “…yum.”

Helen watched silently as he took a bite.

Happy’s throat worked once. Then again.

By the time May settled herself onto the opposite end of the massive sectional sofa, tucking one leg beneath herself while watching him suspiciously over the rim of her own muffin, he was still chewing with the determined focus of a man trying not to emotionally discourage someone he cared for.

“You’re doing that thing with your face,” May finally blurted out.

Happy immediately straightened a little where he sat against the cushions, still forcing the bite downward through sheer loyalty and willpower alone.

“I’m eating a muffin,” he managed hoarsely.

“Happy.”

“I said yum.”

May rolled her eyes so hard Helen thought they might actually stick, before turning toward her instead, already lifting another muffin from the tray.

“Sure you don’t—?”

Helen smiled politely.

“Watching my sugar intake,” she answered smoothly. “But thank you.”

May snorted softly beneath her breath, shifting sideways on the couch so she could lean forward and set the tray down between the abandoned takeout cartons and mugs scattered across the table. One of the dish towels slipped halfway off the pan in the process, and she absently pushed it back into place.

“Funny,” she murmured, settling back against the cushions afterward. “Feels like I should be thanking you.”

The humor faded from Helen’s face almost immediately at the sincerity underneath it.

“May —”

“No, seriously.” May’s gaze dropped toward the coffee table instead, fingers rubbing absently against each other as the last of the nervous energy slowly drained back out of her. When she looked up again, the exhaustion on her face felt quieter now. More honest. “Thank you, Dr. Cho.”

Helen’s expression softened almost immediately. She shifted slightly where she sat at the opposite end of the sectional, tablet resting forgotten against her knee as some of the clinical distance she usually carried eased away.

“Helen,” she corrected gently. “Please. For the amount of time we’ve spent trying to keep your nephew alive together, I think we’re past formalities.”

That earned the faintest smile out of May.

“Peter wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Helen.” She leaned back deeper into the couch cushions, one hand curling loosely around the untouched muffin in her lap while the rain continued to blur softly against the windows behind them. “Honestly, that can probably be said for multiple occasions by now. On behalf of my nephew, I apologize.”

A strained laugh slipped out of her, tired and fond all at once.

“I’m starting to think he’s single-handedly keeping you employed.”

Helen blinked in surprise, before slowly, she smiled.

“Nothing that’s ever brought Peter to me has ever been his fault,” she said gently. Her gaze drifted briefly toward the photograph still resting near the suitcase before returning to May again. “Don’t ever let yourself carry that.”

There was no hesitation in her voice when she continued.

“And truthfully...” Her fingers settled loosely together in her lap as her expression warmed. “I’m grateful I could be there for him. He’s an incredible kid, you know. With or without the spider powers.”

For a second, something gentler crossed May’s exhausted face — quiet pride slipping through all the fear and stress still hanging onto her.

She huffed a small laugh through her nose, folding her arms loosely across herself against the couch cushions.

“Well,” she said, “I’m glad he’s got such a dedicated fan base.”

Her eyes flickered briefly toward the living room walls where Stark security monitors still glowed dimly in the background, pale blue light threading softly across the marble floors and rain-darkened windows.

“Especially people willing to go this far for him.”

The words settled warmly between them.

“Thank you,” May added more quietly this time. “Again.”

Something softened visibly across Helen’s face. Sitting there together on opposite ends of the massive sectional no longer felt quite so much like physician and patient’s family. Almost instinctively, Helen leaned forward and rested her hand gently over May’s.

“I’m happy to have been able to—”

A sudden choking sound cut her off.

Both women turned immediately toward the kitchen just in time to catch Happy hunched over the trash can near the island, hurriedly trying to dispose of the remaining half of his blueberry muffin before either of them noticed.

The moment he realized they were both staring at him, he froze. A damp chunk of muffin promptly fell out of his mouth and landed against the rim of the trash can with a soft plop.

Happy straightened with what little dignity he had left, wiping at his mouth before casually tossing the remainder of the muffin into the trash like none of them had witnessed any part of that.

“I’m...” he cleared his throat, roughly, “also watching my sugar intake.”

 

---

 

[ꜱ ᴛ ᴀ ʀ ᴋ // ꜱᴇᴄᴜʀᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍꜱ]

ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ ᴀʀᴄʜɪᴠᴇ : ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ

ꜱʏɴᴄ ꜱᴛᴀᴛᴜꜱ............ : ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇ

ɴᴇᴡ ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇꜱ ............  03

ᴘʀɪᴏʀɪᴛʏ ᴀʟᴇʀᴛꜱ   : 01

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ʀᴇᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ ............ : 21:17 ᴇꜱᴛ

 

The holographic interface flickered blue across the screen of Tony’s phone the moment he unlocked it, translucent notifications stacking over one another before collapsing neatly into the corner.

Missed calls. News alerts.

Three separate headlines about OsCorp.

His eyes skimmed past those articles without slowing, dismissing the notifications with a flick of his thumb before any could fully expand across the screen.

FRIDAY’s voice slipped smoothly through the speaker a second later.

“Good evening, Boss.” Tony adjusted the audio routing without looking, pushing every bit of sound directly through the phone speaker pressed to his ear. “You have three new voicemails.”

Tony sat sideways in the narrow window alcove built into the far wall of the medbay room, one shoulder leaned against the reinforced glass while the faint blue glow of his phone reflected dimly across the arc reactor overtop his shirt.

“Play them.”

The compound beyond the windows lay washed beneath the remains of the day’s storm, all but reduced to distant thunder and rivers of water dragging down the glass. Beyond the soaked landing strip, the jet hangar glowed through the rain — pale industrial light bleeding across the tarmac in blurred reflections.

Tony looked away from the window and back to his phone. The voicemail tab expanded with a soft electronic chirp, and he made a few quick adjustments to keep the sound confined to the device rather than letting FRIDAY carry it through the room.

He pressed the phone closer against his ear, posture still angled toward the rain-streaked glass. Behind him, Peter lay curled slightly beneath wool blankets in the center of the medbay bed, monitor light washing pale across his face while infusion pumps worked steadily at his bedside.

 

[ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ // ᴘʟᴀʏʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴɪᴛɪᴀʟɪᴢᴇᴅ ]

ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇ ɪᴅ .......... 01

ʀᴇᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ ............ ᴛᴏᴅᴀʏ // 17:42 ᴇꜱᴛ

ᴀᴜᴅɪᴏ ʀᴏᴜᴛɪɴɢ ....... ᴘʀɪᴠᴀᴛᴇ

 

Near Tony’s hip, a Stark tablet rested face-up against the window alcove cushion, its screen still glowing where he’d abandoned it sometime earlier.

Rows of financial data remained across the display.

“Tony, hi, it’s Jerri.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed immediately at the sound of the voice, years of mutually aggravating legal battles making the recognition instantaneous.

"I just wanted to check in with you today. I know you invested a great deal into these OsCorp cases — ofph, persistent, you were, just wouldn’t take no for an answer, all year long. And I imagine losses like this are never easy. I do hope you’re alright.”

Every few minutes, the tablet automatically refreshed another section of cache, new lines of numbers quietly populating across the screen in pale blue Stark UI.

His attention kept flickering back toward the glowing display while the voicemail played, focus catching there for a second before returning to the voice in his ear.

"That said, I also hope that…well, Tony, you call yourself a futurist, right? And that you are, I give you credit there. I do hope you’ll eventually reconsider your position on OsCorp’s work. Progress has always made people uncomfortable in its early stages, but experimental advancement is still advancement. Not even you can deny that.”

Tony sat pressed sideways against the window glass, one knee drawn loosely up beneath his arm while the dim glow of his phone traced cool blue light across the sharp edges of his face. Lower beside him, the abandoned tablet continued casting shifting lines of Stark UI light across the underside of his jaw each time another section of data refreshed across the screen.

Every so often, his eyes drifted back toward Peter asleep behind him — the kid half-curled beneath the blankets with his phone still loose in his lap from the last round of stubbornly insisting he was awake enough to text his friends.

“The court seemed to agree that uncertainty surrounding technological advancement isn’t reason enough to interfere with it prematurely. Especially now, given the rising circumstances.” Another measured pause followed, the faint sound of papers shifting somewhere on her end of the voicemail. “With General Ross moving forward on the Department of Defense contract, I believe most of the relevant parties consider these 'unlawful experiment' matters resolved, wouldn’t you?”

Her tone remained smooth, almost courteous.

Behind him, one of the infusion pumps gave a soft mechanical click as another measured stream of plasma disappeared down the IV line threaded into Peter’s arm.

“At this point, Tony, continuing to pursue litigation against OsCorp may only waste your time and resources. The government has already made its position fairly clear regarding the value of the company’s work and where they see its future heading.” The faint sound of her exhaling carried softly through the speaker afterward, measured and patient.“I simply thought it was important that you understood that before deciding how much further you intend to push this. Regardless, if you ever need anything from my office, don’t hesitate to reach out. Take care of yourself, okay?”

The message ended with a soft click before the screen shifted automatically to the next voicemail waiting in queue.

Tony exhaled slowly through his nose as the voicemail cut off, jaw tight enough now that it bordered on painful. His gaze drifted back toward Peter, the darkened medbay leaving most of the bed swallowed in shadows except for the faint monitor glow catching across his face — the oversized gray MIT sweatshirt doing little to break up the washed-out color still lingering on his skin.

Thirty-eight unsuccessful minutes spent trying to figure out where the hell the kids own hoodie had vanished off to ultimately ended with Tony grabbing the first clean sweatshirt he owned and calling the problem solved.

The screen shifted automatically to the next message waiting in queue.

 

[ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ // ᴘʟᴀʏʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴɪᴛɪᴀʟɪᴢᴇᴅ ]

ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇ ɪᴅ .......... 02

ʀᴇᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ ............ ᴛᴏᴅᴀʏ // 18:11 ᴇꜱᴛ

ᴀᴜᴅɪᴏ ʀᴏᴜᴛɪɴɢ ....... ᴘʀɪᴠᴀᴛᴇ

 

“Hi, Tony… it’s-it’s May.”

Tony’s shoulders tightened subtly at the sound of May’s voice, his head tipping back against the glass while exhaustion settled heavier across his expression. Beside him, the tablet refreshed again in silent blue pulses, flickering faintly through the alcove while he listened.

“Just wanted to let you know that I talked to Midtown today and got Peter excused from school until after Thanksgiving break, which is honestly feeling suspiciously easy the more I do this. I’m starting to think that school would excuse a missing child so long as activity dues are paid up. But anyway, I figured we’ll just… see where he’s at after that. Dr. Cho says it’s very…spider-bite based on where this goes.”

A small rustling crackled through the line before she gave a tired sigh.

“You should know that I’ve been baking nonstop for three days, because apparently that’s considered a healthier coping mechanism than having a complete nervous breakdown. At least according to the self-help books I’ve become emotionally dependent on at two in the morning. Which, yes, I know is pathetic. Don’t say it. I don’t need to hear it.” Another pause. “I can’t sleep anyway, so I figured I might as well weaponize insomnia productively. God knows I’ve got the time, trapped up here in this penthouse.”

Tony stayed motionless while she spoke, phone pressed against his ear and one arm folded loosely across the knee drawn up beneath him.

“And I guess…I don’t know. I called because…after talking to Dr. Cho today, I just can’t stop thinking about all of this.”

Tony’s gaze drifted back toward the window while she spoke, the sprawling compound beyond reduced to scattered security lights and long stretches of darkness beneath the storm’s fading aftermath. Tall white and amber floodlights stood motionless across the distant grounds, their glow reaching faintly through the glass to cast long shadows across his face and the quiet medbay around him.

“You realize this has all happened in less than a year, right?” she spoke quietly, her voice wavering all the while. “First there’s that…that…bunker nonsense. No one should’ve survived that. How did he survive that?” A pause.“Then he’s suddenly being rushed off to Africa in the middle of the night — don’t get me started on Africa, because I still don’t know the full details of you, him and Wakanda and quite frankly, after that bunker nonsense, I don’t think I want to know. I can only handle so much before freaking out — and now this? You know, Ben used to joke that the Parker men were cursed with bad luck. Peter’s father said the same thing. But this?” A strained little laugh escaped her.“This can’t just be bad luck anymore.”

Silence lingered for a second. Tony couldn’t tell whether May was trying to gather the next thought or convince herself not to say it out loud.

Honestly, he would’ve understood either.

“I know you said he’s stable. I know you told me he’s okay. Helen said he’s getting better. It’s going to be okay.” The words came out slowly, each one sounding far less like reassurance and more like something she had repeated to herself enough times to memorize. “But every time my phone rings, Tony, I keep thinking it’s going to be someone telling me he finally didn’t make it this time. After everything that’s happened this past year, surely you have to understand why that would be.”

Tony's eyes drifted briefly toward Peter's bed at that, unable to argue with the logic no matter how much he wished he could.

“Yes, I’ve been freaking out. No, Happy isn’t helping — I mean, yes he’s helping but no he’s not — somehow the man manages to sound like he’s diffusing a hostage situation every time he talks to me, which is not helping! Good God, Tony, I’m going stir crazy in this damn penthouse, it’s been five days. Five. Days. I’m one inconvenience away from clawing my way through a window, and I’m almost out of baking pans to use! And the stupid thing is, whenever I start freaking out like this, Peter’s usually the one calming me down. Which probably says something deeply concerning about our household dynamic. Sorry. I’m rambling. And freaking out. And trying to ice cupcakes.”

Tony closed his eyes briefly at that, one hand dragging across his mouth as he leaned back against the glass. Keeping May away was the last thing he wanted to do. But he'd seen what happened when people close caught in the crossfire. Pepper, Rhodey, Happy — the list was already too damn long.

And if something happened to May because he'd let his guard down now, Tony would never allow Peter to forgive him for it.

If the price of keeping her safe was a few more days of panic, insomnia, and increasingly aggressive baking, Tony considered that an easy trade.

“I do trust you, Tony.” A tired breath slipped through the speaker.

Her voice softened, some of the frantic energy starting to drain out of it. Tony couldn't tell whether she'd simply exhausted herself or if the conversation had finally wandered into territory she actually wanted to talk about. 

“I trust that he’s safe with you. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly thank you for how many times you’ve shown up for him when things got bad.” A pause lingered there. “And maybe you’ll deny it, because you’re you, and I know you’re you and you know you’re you — but I know this is hurting you too.”

A long silence settled over the voicemail after that.

Tony's gaze lowered briefly. Beside him, the tablet refreshed again in another pulse of blue light. Behind him, Peter remained asleep beneath the blankets, one hand curled loosely against his stomach while the plasma pumps continued their steady rhythm beside the bed.

“I just… if there’s any chance I can see him soon, I’d really like that.”

Another tired laugh escaped her. The exhaustion returned around the edges of her voice with the next weak laugh.

“And tell everyone at the compound thank you, because apparently I coped by stress-baking enough cookies to open a small bakery.” She sighed dramatically. “Honestly, I think the penthouse permanently smells like oatmeal chocolate chip now. If this place was supposed to stay secret, I may have ruined that. So either you need to come get these cookies soon, or you need to let me drop them off before I end up buried alive in Tupperware containers. I’m serious, Tony. This is becoming a legitimate safety hazard.”

The voicemail clicked off.

Tony stared at the screen for a moment after May’s voicemail ended, thumb resting motionless against the edge of the phone while rain whispered softly against the glass beside him.

Behind him, Peter remained asleep beneath the mountain of blankets, untouched by the quiet chorus of monitors and the steady pulse of pumps working beside his bed. Every few minutes, the phone resting loose in his lap buzzed insistently against the fabric of his sweatshirt. Not even that was enough to pull him awake.

For a fleeting moment, the room felt strangely quiet.

Beside Tony's leg, the tablet brightened automatically. The sudden wash of blue light drew his gaze downward, shadows gathered beneath his eyes, the crease between his brows never fully easing.

For several seconds, he simply stared at the screen. Rows of financial disclosures crawled silently across the display.

The glow from the tablet reflected faintly across his face as thunder rolled low in the far off distance.

 

[ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇᴍᴀɪʟ // ᴘʟᴀʏʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴɪᴛɪᴀʟɪᴢᴇᴅ ]

ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇ ɪᴅ .......... 03

ʀᴇᴄᴇɪᴠᴇᴅ ............ ᴛᴏᴅᴀʏ // 19:28 ᴇꜱᴛ

ᴀᴜᴅɪᴏ ʀᴏᴜᴛɪɴɢ ....... ᴘʀɪᴠᴀᴛᴇ

 

A brief crackle of static followed before a woman’s voice stumbled abruptly into the recording.

“Oh - oh! Holy —!”

Something clattered loudly in the background as papers shuffled damn-near violently right by the receiver. It was sudden enough to draw Tony’s attention back to his phone.

“It’s actually a real number. Uh — s-sorry, wow, okay, um — hi. Hello, Mr. Stark.” A beat. “The actual Mr. Tony Stark,” she corrected quickly, sounding increasingly alarmed by the fact. “Which, I mean, obviously. Because this is your number. That you gave me, in your email. That would be weird otherwise. Oh my God.”

Tony closed his eyes briefly, the phone still pressed against his ear with the crease between his brows softening slightly as he listened.

“This is Karen Page,” she continued quickly, words beginning to trip over each other. “I’m just, uh, returning your phone call regarding legal services. For Nelson and Murdock. Or-or, Murdock and Nelson. Technically both are correct, depending on who paid the electric bill that month.”

A rustling sound followed.

“If, uh, that’s something you’re still looking for,” she added. “Legal services, I mean. Not electric bills. We are unfortunately not qualified for that.”

Tony leaned back slightly against the couch beneath the windows, phone pressed loosely against his ear . More paper shuffling crackled through the voicemail.

“You can call me back — uh, us. You can call us back at…”

Silence.

A longer silence.

“…oh no.”

An even longer silence.

“Oh jeeze, I’m sorry,” Karen said, her laugh nervous enough that it sounded one misstep away from total breakdown. “I forgot our phone number for a second, which feels like maybe something they should revoke my employment for.”

A drawer slammed open.

“No, that’s takeout menus—” More rustling papers. “Why do we own this many menus?” Something fell. “Oh my God.”

Tony lowered his head slightly, rubbing at his temple.

“Sorry, one second, this is deeply humiliating.” A short pause followed before she spoke again, quieter this time. “I still can't believe this is happening.” More papers rustled. “Tony Stark. Calling us. Specifically us.” A beat. “Doesn't he already have lawyers? Like, expensive lawyers? Entire teams of expensive lawyers? He’s gotta have entire firms on retainer — got it!”

Several seconds of increasingly aggressive paper shuffling followed before an audible gasp of relief broke through the speaker.

“Okay. 212-555-7983.” A relieved exhale escaped her immediately after. “Anyway. Thank you. Again — Karen Page. For Mr. Stark. Which is you. Obviously.”

Tony stared out at the rain-streaked glass while she continued talking, distant floodlights shimmering across the soaked tarmac beyond the compound.

Beside him, the tablet refreshed again in another pulse of pale blue light, rows of financial disclosures shifting silently across the display without earning so much as a glance.

“God, okay, I’m ending this now before it somehow gets worse. Thank you. Goodbye.”

The voicemail clicked dead.

For a moment, the room returned to quiet.

Thin rivers of water ran down the windows beside him while distant thunder rolled somewhere beyond the compound. The storm had long since exhausted itself, no different than what remained in its wake, leaving behind little more than drifting clouds and the occasional low growl from beyond the horizon.

Tony's gaze lifted. Across the room, Peter remained asleep in the center of the medbay bed, nearly swallowed by the mountain of burgundy and navy blankets piled around him. Faint light from the monitors washed across his face, pale against the oversized MIT sweatshirt and the dark shadows gathered beneath his eyes.

The steady hum of medical equipment filled the silence.

His eyes lingered there for another second, before slowly, Tony's attention drifted back to the phone resting in his hand.

The number remained waiting on the display.

With a single tap, he hit call back.