musicalluna

FLUX 2

2014-02-24T05:18:14Z

OsCorp is amazing. It's not that Peter doesn't appreciate how far ahead of everyone Stark Industries is, it's just—OsCorp focuses on biology. What his dad likes to call not-very-nicely “soft science”; but Peter's always been fascinated by it and OsCorp is one of the leading companies doing bio-mechanical engineering and genetic experimentation in the world. Which is why he and Gwen are interning here, and also why they’ve dedicated themselves to peeking at his phone behind their chaperones’ backs. Been there, done that, got the app, like his dad is always saying.

They're waiting for the elevator when it goes off again. His hand drops to his pocket and Gwen catches the movement out of the corner of her eye. She glances up at him and then eases between him and the closest chaperone. “My hero,” he whispers to her and smiles when he sees her cheek curve in reply.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she murmurs. He hunches down to peer at the screen and pauses to nuzzle her shoulder.

“But Gwennn,” he says, making his voice extra plaintive and she throws her hand up, putting the back to her forehead.

“No, not the puppy eyes!” she cries in a dramatic Southern accent and he has to stifle a laugh in her shoulder blade, hiding the phone in the small of her back when everybody turns to look.

“You are terrible at stealth-ops,” he whispers when he thinks most everyone has looked away.

“Not my division,” she retorts. “Will you check already?”

Peter stifles a laugh in the hood draped across her shoulders and does as he's told and pulls up the texts. They're from his dads. The first two are from Tony, the earliest a snapshot of a cowl-less Captain America with a line of black stitches that slants diagonally down from the ridge on the left side of his forehead all the way to the arch of his right eyebrow. It looks like he tried to clean up some of the liberal amounts of blood dried on his face, but he hadn't been very successful. It's like a horror movie rendition of himself with blood crusted in his eyebrows, in dark rivulets down both sides of his nose, his temples. Peter wonders if his dad's skull wasn't stronger than an ordinary man's, if whatever had done that could have—okay, stop. Stop. No. He deletes the photo and his dad's other text comes up:

dad 13:04 03.06.39

looks nasty, but no concussion. he loves it when i

call him Frankie.

Peter snorts. The next message is from his other dad, but he has to wait until he and Gwen are stuffed into the back corner of the elevator to read it because one of OsCorp's two assigned escorts for their class keeps sidling up beside them.

DAD 13:05 03.06.39

I really am okay, Peter. Please put your phone away

now and enjoy your field trip. I know you've been

looking forward to it for weeks. Love you. Dad.

“Your dad is adorable,” Gwen whispers and Peter pins her with a look. “He signs all his texts!”

“Please never say that again.” Dad does sign all his texts though. Peter's tried a thousand times to get him to stop.

“I'm just saying,” Gwen says with a little prim shake of her head. “He's like a giant marshmallow. A giant, red, white, and blue, butt-kicking marshmallow.”

Peter slips his phone back into his bag as they shuffle off of the elevator. “All right!” their tour guide says. “Do we have any tourers who have arachnophobia?”

A couple of girls at the front of the group giggle nervously and Gwen wraps her hand around Peter's arm, leaning up on her toes to look at their guide. “Is he serious?” she whispers. “They’re taking us through The Tunnel?”

Peter checks the guide's face again and nods. “Yeah, looks pretty serious.” He raises an eyebrow at her. “Are you?”

“No. No,” Gwen says, shaking her head and staring at the guide as he separates out several of the students who have decided that they are. “No, I'm not phobic. I just. Prefer it when they're not near me.”

Peter's laugh catches in his throat. “Oh, well, okay then. You coming?” he asks when the guide starts walking backwards again, waving his hands and talking enthusiastically about OsCorp's numerous spider-related projects.

“Yep,” Gwen says. “Yep, I'm coming. Here I come.” She grabs his hand then, her grip a little too tight, and Peter can't bring himself to care.

“Oh my god,” Gwen breathes a few minutes later when they reach the archway leading into the department's tour de force and her grip on his hand grows a fraction tighter. This is one of the few places in the building they haven’t had a chance to explore. The Tunnel, as it’s referred to by employees, is home to the world’s most expensive arachnids. Each one is worth like, quarter of a million dollars or something.

The tour guide uses his badge on an access pad, which flashes a little green light, the door making a soft click as it comes unlocked. It's glass, set in a half-moon glass wall, behind which is a tunnel filled with a low lagoon-colored light. The entire class hushes as they move through the door, the tour guide speaking in a stage-whisper.

All up and down the first sections of the tunnel walls are hundreds—maybe thousands—of soft, gauzy white spider's webs, densely woven in between pegs sticking out of the walls. There are tiny eight-legged bodies moving over the webs and Peter stares in awe.

Each section is marked with a small placard, attached to the hand railing and tilted upward for easy reading. The first shows an enlarged image of the little round spiders—they're actually kinda cute—moving across the webs and it reads: Aridne borabilias – A small genetically modified specimen, which spins masses of webbing. The webs are regularly harvested to be used for various strengthening and binding projects. These spiders produce the strongest, most lightweight, and the most flexible substance on earth.

Peter leans in to get a closer look and Gwen makes a little noise, pulls back on his hand. “Peter, what are you doing,” she hisses, “don't stick your face in there!”

Peter looks back at her and grins, “Relax, Gwen. They wouldn't let us in here if there was anything dangerous.” And—this is one of the things Peter loves about her—Gwen gets that. So she leans in too, holding her breath and just about crushing his fingers, but she leans in and looks. Peter just stares at her, totally dumbstruck.

“Okay,” she says, and waves a finger at a small section, “These ones are actually a little bit adorable.” She looks up at him then and catches him gawking and Peter feels heat flood his face. She gives him a funny look and straightens up, says, “What?” She pats her cheek. “Is there something on my face?”

“No— I was just— You're kind of, you know.”

Now she looks like she's trying not to laugh at him. “Am I now.”

“Shut up,” he mutters and gives her a little push to get her moving. Gwen laughs and it makes the little hairs all down his spine tingle.

The two of them drift along at the very back of the group, reading the placards and examining the various species of spiders—one called dominae oribus has even created these tubes of webbing between each of the pegs, each spider hidden somewhere inside, barely visible. “Okay, those ones creep me out,” Gwen admits. “Come on, next section.” She tugs on his hand and Peter lets her drag him forward.

The last two sections on either side of the tunnel are dummy set-ups. “'The barola mindicus and aracadia traxila are OsCorp's most advanced research specimens',” Peter reads. “'These spiders have been not only genetically modified, but irradiated and as a result must be kept in special habitats to protect the scientists working with them. These displays are to give you an idea of what these specimens and their habitats look like.'”

Gwen's frowning. “Irradiated spiders. That's a terrible idea. It's a miracle any of them are even still alive. Does it say why they're doing it?”

Peter leans down to get a better look at the placard, then across the aisle to look at the other one and shakes his head. “No, doesn't say. Must be something big.”

He actually knows why.

The scientist he’s been interning for is the same guy who’s been heading the team working on the aracadia traxila and the spiders are part of an attempt to recreate the effects of the mutant gene, the super soldier serum, and the radiation effects that created The Fantastic Four.

It’s actually brilliant, but radiation restrictions and genetic modification laws have made it nearly impossible for them to do any real world testing. But after a semester of studying the data and the simulations and the history of all three groups, Peter is sure that this is the answer to his problems.

“Or something ethically questionable,” Gwen mutters. “I mean irradiation, come on. You don't mess with that. You'd think people would learn after what happened to your uncle.”

It’s not the same, Peter wants to tell her, but if anyone ever found out about what he and Sibbel are about to do, the entire program would be shut down. Sibbel would be in massive trouble for involving a minor, even if it’s what Peter wants.

“Can you imagine a spider Hulking out?” Peter says instead, chuckling as he leans over the railing, checking out the display spiders and admitting he's glad these ones are fake when his stomach gives an uneasy roll. They're the creepiest kind, with long, pointed legs and visible fangs—they look a lot like black widows, but they're pale and semi-transparent, eerie-looking in the blue lighting.

Gwen shudders and says, in a low voice, “Oh my god, don't even joke. My worst nightmare.”

The doors at the end of the hall swing shut behind the last of their classmates as she moves up close behind him and the shifting light tricks Peter into thinking that the display has moved. Dozens of spindly legs waver, reaching out, and Peter's hand clenches around the guard rail. He straightens, a little zing of irrational fear darting into the base of his skull. “Okay,” he says, voice coming out a little higher than it should. “I think I've had about enough of the spiders for today. Gwen?”

Relief breaks across her face. “Oh, thank god, let's go. I don't want to be alone in here.”

It's already too late for that though; they're the only ones left in the muffled quiet of the tunnel. Thanks to his mildly enhanced hearing, Peter can hear a whisper from the far end as thousands of tiny web-spiders skitter around. How does anyone do research in here without getting a massive case of the creeps?

Gwen grabs hold of his hand and Peter pulls away from the railing, feels a sharp prick on the side of his hand. “Ouch!” he says, snatching it back.

Gwen hesitates and looks up at him, eyes wide and her face ghostly in the strange blue light. Her freckles are stark across her nose. “Peter? Did something just—”

“No,” Peter mutters, because that's ridiculous, there's no way, and bends forward to peer under the sign on the railing. Gwen's twisting his hand around so she can look at the stinging spot on the side of his hand.

“You have a little cut,” she tells him and Peter nods as she says it because he can see the culprit.

“Yeah, there's a screw under there sticking out.”

“Come on, let's go,” Gwen says, tugging on his arm, “I am so creeped out right now. I thought you—”

“You thought I got bit by a spider, didn't you?” Peter says, his amusement leaking out into his voice as she hauls him toward the doors. “You thought one of the radioactive spiders was roaming free and attacked me. You thought I was going to turn into The Thing.”

“Shut up,” Gwen mutters and pokes him in the ribs. “General Jerk.”

Peter laughs. “General, am I. Hey, at least I out-rank my dad.”

The light outside the tunnel is painfully bright and both he and Gwen wince. The class has gotten ahead of them, but not too far. Peter tugs on Gwen's sleeve lightly and says, “Hey, I'm gonna run for the bathroom, cover for me?”

Gwen gives him a look and says, “You had better dig deep and find some super speed.”

“Scout's honor,” Peter says, backing away from her with his fingers spread in the Vulcan salute.

“You are maligning my dad's favorite thing!” Gwen hisses after him.

Peter's heart starts to beat a little faster as he makes his way through the building, walking fast. He adjusts his glasses for the gazillionth time, and hopes if anyone notices him, his pace will keep them from finding him out of place. Gwen is probably going to be furious with him when he gets back, but hopefully this won't take long. All they have to do is administer the dose, and he’s out of there.

At the elevators, Peter slips inside, ducking his head at the looks he gets from all of the adult occupants. He's been interning with Doctor Sibbel for just over a semester now. He's been patient, but he's done waiting.

He can barely stand still, fingers tapping against the straps of his backpack. A man standing in the far corner of the car gives him a look and Peter shoots him a nervous smile, clenching his fingers to stop the tapping. God, please don't let anyone recognize him or catch him or, oh man, his dads would freak if they heard he'd snuck away from the class. And if they knew what he was doing?

Despite what their past-selves have done, Peter's pretty sure they wouldn't approve. He's doing it to help though. It's the right thing to do.

The elevator climbs steadily upward, Peter squirming the whole way and trying not to look suspicious while he does it. It's just creeping past the last floor when a woman narrows her eyes at him and speaks up. “Are you—”

“Getting off here, yep, thanks, can you just—” He gestures at the button and one of the other men presses it for him. “Thanks.”

The woman goes quiet, frowning, and Peter bites the inside of his cheek. Come on, hurry up!

Finally, the elevator doors slide open and Peter squeezes through.

The floor is expansive and open, split up by glass walls—most of the floors in Oscorp are like this, but this is where they keep some of the most choice equipment, although nothing like the stuff his dad and uncle have got at home.

He can't help a giddy little laugh from escaping his throat. He claps a hand over his mouth to stifle further noises and tries to get himself together. Oh, god, he's delirious. “Be cool,” he orders.

Each of the rooms has a keypad fitted into the glass next to the door. They look like keycard scanners, with a touch panel for a palm scan. It's not the worst, but it's definitely nowhere near as secure as the Tower.

Sibbel's lab is in the middle of the floor. His name is printed on the blue lit placard above the keypad and the man himself is sitting at one of the lab tables inside hunched toward a holographic screen hovering over the center. Peter's mouth quirks up in a smile. He likes the Doc. He's funny, although Peter's not really sure he means to be.

A swallow catches and sticks in his throat, around his rabbiting heart, and Peter realizes he's nervous. This is something he's gotta do though. He's a liability the way he is. He's not going to be anymore. After this they won't be able to stop him from helping.

He tries to imagine his dads' faces if they knew what he was doing, and he can't quite do it. But Tony built himself a suit, and Steve was offered the super soldier serum. This is the same thing.

He wants to help people and watch out for his family and that's a good thing, right?

They'll be proud, when he can keep up with them running across the city, scaling buildings, and punching bad guys.

Peter steps forward and knocks lightly on the glass.

Doctor Sibbel looks up, confused for a moment. Then he sees Peter's face and his expression goes comically wide. He's about the same height Tony is when he's wearing his lifts. Brown hair, brown eyes, tanned skin and eyebrows that are tilted in a little bit toward his nose under a creased brow. He kind of looks like a surprised orange.

Peter waves, and grins.

Sibbel hurries over and pushes open the door, waving him inside. “Come in, come in, you made it. That's excellent.”

“Hey, Doctor S. Thanks for seeing me. I was hoping we could make this quick, I'm actually on a field trip right now? And my teacher's gonna freak when she realizes I'm not with the rest of the class. I'm sorry to rush you and I can't tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“No, no, no,” Sibbel says, “You're doing me a favor.”

“I've been studying your research for ages now, Doc,” Peter says. “Considering what we know about the Fantastic Four and Doctor Banner, it makes sense that the key to unlocking superhuman abilities in non-mutants would be radiation-based. It's totally possible that the Vita- Rays they used to make Captain America were a form of radiation.”

Sibbel looks spooked at the mention of Peter's dad. It's taken him weeks to talk Sibbel into letting him be the first guinea pig. “You do understand the risks this poses, don't you? There is, of course, no guarantee, and the process could be very unpleasant. Several of my test subjects were sick for days.”

Peter nods. “No, I understand. I think the science is sound. If there's a way to do this, I think this is it.”

Sibbel wrings his hands.

“Come on, Doc. You did your research, right? You can finally prove to everybody that you knew what you were doing all along.”

That makes Sibbel's eyes gleam, just the way he knew it would. The guy's hungry to prove himself.

“Come,” Sibbel says, beckoning him forward. There are a row of plexiglass boxes sunk into the wall over one stretch of countertop and Peter blinks at the series of small habitats inside them. Sibbel reaches for the handle on one of them—it's unlit and Peter can just make out the curve of a length of pipe or something sitting on the bottom. “This is the only way to administer,” Sibbel says apologetically. “The serum degrades when exposed to oxygen.”

“Oh, super,” Peter says. “Just what I've always wanted. Here goes nothing.”

Sibbel pulls out the little plexiglass case just far enough for Peter to slip his hand inside. For a second he just stands there, heart thumping against his sternum, hand dangling inside the box, before realizing the goal here is not to avoid getting bitten. So he grimaces and reaches down, fluttering his fingers inside the opening of the pipe.

A pale, spindly-legged spider, just like the one he'd been looking at with Gwen not ten minutes ago comes scuttling out the other end, front legs waving in clear agitation.

“Ugh,” Peter says, the skin crawling along the back of his neck and up his arms. His fingers curl involuntarily, but he pushes his hand toward the spider, closing his eyes. He hears rustling as it skitters through the wood shavings covering the bottom of the plexiglass box—then the hairs on his arm rise up in a wave as something tickles his knuckles. He yelps at a sudden sharp stab of pain near the base of his thumb and bangs his hand on the top of the enclosure.

“There, there, it's done,” Sibbel says, but Peter feels it bite him again.

Sibbel grabs onto his wrist when he tries to pull his hand out and holds him there, using a thin metal ruler to brush the spider off of Peter's hand. He lets go and Peter jerks away, Sibbel pushing the box back into the wall as the spider slinks back into the pipe.

Peter hisses, four dots of blood marking the back of his hand. His heart is racing. “I'm not going to overdose am I,” he quips, but some of the humor is lost in the shaking of his voice.

“No, it doesn't work like that,” Sibbel says. He stares into Peter's face, worry wrinkling his face. “Are you all right?”

“Sure. Sure, yeah, sure,” Peter babbles, staring at the spots of blood. He did it.

“Where have you been?” Ms. March demands when Peter jogs up to the group ten minutes later. He flushes as the whole of his classmates turn to stare at him, Gwen giving him a what the hell, dude? look as he comes up beside her.

“I, um, got lost coming back from the bathroom?” Peter says. He feels a little strange going back to class in the wake of the potentially life-changing punctures on his hand. It all feels kind of far-off.

“That is why we have escorts,” Ms. March exclaims. “Your fathers—”

That snaps him out of it pretty quick. “I'm back, I made it back, I didn't get in trouble, so can we please, please not involve them, I mean, they have enough stress in their lives, don't you think?”

She glares at him. “If you step so much as one toe away from this group, your field trip privileges will be revoked. I will not deal with your parents wrath because you have itchy feet!”

He knows she won't tell them, though, because that would mean having to answer questions like, How did he get away in the first place? Isn't this your job? And Tony's been known to be a little litigious in this area.

“I had to go to the bathroom!” Peter protests.

“You know better than to go without letting someone know where you are going!” Ms. Marsh barks. A cluster of the students behind her back are snickering and miming spraying him with water like a bad dog.

Peter hunches his shoulders and says, “Okay, fine. I got it. Don't go pee anymore.”

“Detention,” Ms. March hisses, followed by a chorus of oooooh. “Quiet! Now does anyone else need to use the restroom? No? Good. Let's go on.”

As they resume walking, Gwen whispers, “What happened to you really?”

Peter makes puppy-dog eyes at her and pulls his sleeve down over the Band-Aids on his hand. “I ran into Doctor Sibbel on the way.”

Gwen huffs, arms crossed over her chest, but all she says is, “You owe me, Mister.”

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FLUX 1

2014-02-24T05:16:48Z

It's just after noon when Peter's phone chirrups in his backpack. Nobody else in the group of students headed toward biotechnology company OsCorp's main entrance hears it, thanks to his dad's specially-designed volume controls. Peter, however, does, thanks to the enhanced hearing he inherited from his other dad.

All of which is possible because his dads are the Iron Man and Captain America.

It's a gene pool that comes with a lot of perks.

Perks aren't the only things it comes with though; most fifteen-year-olds' biggest problems involve passing trig or if so-and-so will ask them to Sadie's. Peter worries about all that stuff, too, but he also gets the privilege of wondering if this will be the time Fury calls to say he's lost his dads, or one of his uncles, his aunt. There have been some close calls in the past and whenever they're called to assemble, Peter gets twitchy and a little over-sensitive to his phone's alerts. He's gotten in trouble for it in the past because technically students aren't allowed to have cellphones, but his dads get it; thus, special volume controls.

“Peter, what are you doing?” Gwen hisses when he stops walking to swing his bag around so he can dig for the phone. “Ms. March is going to throw a fit if you get separated!”

Gwen's...well, Peter's pretty sure Gwen is his girlfriend. He hasn't actually asked her yet because he gets tongue-tied just thinking about it and since he's too pathetic to ask her, he hasn't kissed her either, but he thinks he's getting there. If he's reading her right, which he probably is.

Maybe.

Like...79% probability?

Anyway, Gwen's also brilliant, so she puts together the answer to her question before he can.

“Your dads?”

“Probably,” Peter mutters, distracted. Where the heck is his phone? His stomach is crawling around in fits because he'd woken up this morning and gone into the kitchen to find just one dad. And not the one who normally makes him breakfast.

“Morning, Bambi,” Tony'd said and handed him a plate with two Pop-Tarts and a pile of scrambled eggs. “Dad got a call around five this morning. Off to Cleveland!” he said, mouth bent into a completely unconvincing grin.

“Without you?” Peter said, sinking down at the table. He hated it when his dads went off to fight without each other, even when they were with his aunt or uncles. Steve was made pretty tough, but he's not invincible. He tended to put himself in riskier situations when they weren't together. Too selfless for his own good. “And he says I'm the one engaging in high-risk behavior,” Tony was always complaining. “Ha! My personal motto isn't 'lay down on the fucking wire'.”

Peter likes it better when they're together.

Dad shrugged and took a swig of his coffee, the fingers of his free hand grazing over the buttons on his suit jacket. “Yep. Day job, shorty. Don't worry, Dad's a big boy and he's got Clint and Bruce along for the ride.”

Peter knew his dad well enough to know he wasn't taking being left behind as well as he was pretending, but he also knew fake-it-till-you-make-it was pretty much Dad's modus operandi for coping. “Enjoy that nickname while you can, Dad,” he'd said. “Pretty soon I'll be calling you shorty.”

Dad had thrown a dish towel at him, but some of the brooding darkness in his eyes had faded, so Peter counted it as a win.

One of their classmates bumps into him and Peter grunts, breaking out of his thoughts. “Do you mind?” he says and is summarily ignored—as usual. He glares at the girl's retreating head until his fingers find the phone at last.

“Come on,” Gwen says, pulling him forward. “We have to keep up. And keep that thing down so Ms. March doesn't see it.”

“That's what I have you for,” Peter says, smirking at her as he pulls the phone out and she shoots him a humorless smile, but keeps guiding him forward by the elbow, craning her neck to keep an eye out for the chaperones over the heads of their classmates.

Peter's phone lights up under his touch; it's a specially-made Stark device—fingerprint protected. His heart immediately starts pumping faster when he sees he's got four text messages. He reminds himself that if it were serious, they would have called, not texted, and taps open the first message.

Uncle Clint 12:06 03.06.39

hey pete – went fine but no sparring tonight sorry.

think i messed up my bow arm. nothin to worry

about tho.

Uncle Clint 12:06 03.06.39

sorry forgot to say – your dad is OK. got hit but hes

alright

Aunt Nat 12:06 03.06.39

Everyone made it back. Your dad was wounded, but

he's going to be fine. Tony knows. Bruce will text

with details. Your uncle the moron bruised his arm,

but he's just being a baby.

“Peter?” Gwen says and he swallows, his heart making it difficult since it's throbbing at the base of his throat. He realizes he's stopped walking and Gwen's staring anxiously up into his face.

“Uh,” he says and glances down at the phone, at his white-knuckled fingers. “I,” he says and his voice catches. “My dad— He— I mean he's not— He's just—”

Gwen's grip on his arm turns painful and she grabs the phone, her eyes darting back and forth as she reads the message—he'd added her prints just a few days ago. Tony had complained for an hour, but Gwen gets it, what the waiting and not knowing is like and she's— “Oh my god, Peter!” she cries when she's finished and releases his arm just to punch it. “You scared the hell out of me!”

“Ow,” Peter says.

“Jeez,” she continues, hitting him with a dirty look, “I know if it's Steve that's hurt that's a big deal, but I thought—god.”

“I really wish you wouldn't call him Steve,” Peter says, wrinkling his nose.

“That's his name, Peter,” Gwen says, like he doesn't know that, like it makes it less weird that she's on a first name basis with his dad, and she pulls the phone closer to her face. “This one's from Bruce.”

Peter edges closer to her, reading over her shoulder.

Uncle Bruce 12:07 03.06.39

First of all, your dad is fine, Peter. He was injured,

but he should be fully recovered by the end of next

week. The wound looks worse than it is. He's getting

stitches right now. There's nothing to worry about.

“Oh, stitches,” Gwen says, “that's not so bad.”

Peter agrees, but he'll still feel better when he can see for himself. Then he remembers he has one more text.

dad 12:07 03.06.39

dad's back. he's banged up. send you a pic when I

get there.

That makes Peter smile; that's exactly what he needs and Dad knows it.

“Okay, come on,” Gwen says, tugging on his arm, “we need to get moving. We are lagging so bad. You know how crazy Marsh gets when you don't stay with the group.”

The two of them run to catch up with the rest of the class, hand in hand.

Tony has exactly one hour before he has to be back at work for the remainder of his day of incredibly boring meetings—a gift from Pepper. Who had told him in no uncertain terms: “I gave Happy orders to carry you back to the car if necessary. Natasha texted me, so you're not getting out of this with your oh-but-my-poor-husband-I'm-so-distraught-he's-so-badly-injured shtick.”

“He could be emotionally compromised,” Tony pointed out.

Pepper had just given him a Look and said, “One. Hour.”

So here he is in S.H.I.E.L.D. gloomy-as-hell HQ trying to get eyes on his husband. It's not like he doesn't trust Bruce and Clint's assessments of Steve's injuries; they're the best of all of them at all of that field-medic crap, but after seventeen years of this he knows the quickest way to get rid of the knotted ball of anxiety behind the arc reactor is to see for himself.

He blows right past the guard standing at the door to the MedBay and a few strands of the knot immediately start to unspool when his gaze finds Bruce's broad purple-covered shoulders. He's standing with his back to the door, but he turns at the sound of Tony's entrance. His mouth puckers in an amused little smile. “About time. Pepper said you only have until one.”

Tony huffs, part faux-exasperated and part real-exasperated. “Oh my god, she texted you, too? I am capable of following instructions.”

“That's news to me,” comes Clint's voice and Tony gives Bruce a quick once-over before looking to the beds, his eyes sliding over Clint who has his entire right arm swaddled in bags of ice, Natasha who's sitting at the foot of his bed poking at his leg, and over to the bed at the right where Steve's lying on his back, head obscured by the bowed back of the doctor leaning over him. His red-booted feet are sticking off the end.

“Because you always do what you're told, Barton,” Tony mutters, and starts a little when a hand touches his arm.

“He's fine,” Bruce says, voice gentle and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“Well, obviously.”

“It's just a flesh wound,” Bruce goes on. Tony doesn't like the sound of that, because that's Bruce-speak for don't freak out, even though it looks bad.

He sidles around the bed, opposite the doctor, and, “Jesus, Steve, what the hell happened?” slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. He reaches blindly for Steve's hand, fingers clamping tight around it as his heart gives several stuttering, clenchy beats. It looks like someone doused Steve with blood, except for the area right around the still-bleeding gash that crosses his entire forehead, holy hell. The doctor's carefully dabbing away fresh blood as it wells up, sewing the skin back together with tiny, neat stitches.

Steve doesn't open his eyes, but he squeezes Tony's fingers and says with, frankly, way too much cheek, “Went on what's called a 'mission'. Tried to stop some bad guys who didn't want to be stopped.”

The doctor almost manages to disguise his laugh as a cough.

Tony points a narrow-eyed glare at the side of his head. “I told Pete I'd send him a picture,” he says instead of acknowledging his asshole husband's snark and pulls out his phone, starts trying to find a good angle.

Steve's eyes pop open and the doctor makes a chiding noise when his head makes an abortive turn toward Tony. “Tony, no, are you nuts?” he says. “It'll ruin his whole day if he sees me like this.”

Tony flicks his eyes up, mouth flat. “I thought you were fine.”

“Okay, am I going to need to ask you to leave?” the doctor asks when Steve turns his head again and gives Tony a hard look.

“I am fine, but I'm covered in blood. That's not going to reassure him, which is what I assume you're trying to do.”

The most recent stitch slips loose a little and the gash widens, giving Tony a glimpse of pale bone he really could have done without. He swallows with some difficulty and tugs his hand free of Steve's, pushing him back into place. “Stop moving, I can see your skull.”

“You should have seen him earlier,” Clint says and Steve's next glare goes in his direction. Probably because he knows Tony's imagining that now, with technicolor, slo-mo, the works. It's making him a tiny bit nauseous.

“Clint,” Steve says sharply, the way he does when he's telling them off in the field.

“What,” Clint says and shrugs, winces. “I'm saying it looks better. I thought he'd taken off your fa—ow, shit, Nat, what the hell.” Natasha doesn't even bother looking up at him, her face serene and unreadable.

Steve sighs and lets the doctor take his jaw and manipulate him back into place. “At least wait until the stitches are finished, Tony.”

“Yeah, fine, fine, whatever,” Tony mutters and worries his thumb over the hem at Steve's wrist. He glances up at Bruce, grasping for something to distract him. “Big Guy see any action?”

Bruce smiles ruefully. “Not this time.”

“Been awhile,” Tony says and rubs at his nose. “Do we need to go find a quarry or something where he can work off some excess energy? We can give Thor a call.”

“He's not a hyperactive five-year-old, Tony,” Bruce says, wry. “You don't need to set up regular playdates for him.”

Tony's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “Yeah, that's why he and Clint sit and color while we wait for you to change back.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Hulk has never colored with anything other than people's blood, Tony.”

“Holy shit, do you think they make markers big enough?” Clint asks eagerly. “They make those giant pencils—we could get some poster-sized prints— He loves tic-tac-toe as long as I don't win too much.”

“Oh my god,” Bruce says, covering his face with one hand. “Now look what you've done.”

“Might be a good idea,” Steve says thoughtfully. “Drawing always helps me feel calm.”

“Fingerpaints!” Clint just about yells.

Bruce groans and Tony grins at him.

“All right,” the doctor announces, sounding relieved. He sits back and starts tugging off his gloves. “You're all set, Captain.”

“Sit up slowly,” Tony orders when Steve starts shifting to his elbows. “You may be durable, but your blood fills the same amount space as the rest of us. And since you're wearing half of it—so 2002, by the way—”

“Here,” Bruce says, cutting Tony off with a look. “Let me give you a hand.” He eases Steve upright, clasping one of his hands to his chest, the other on Steve's shoulder. “Okay?” Bruce asks, trying to peer at Steve's face when he's up, despite the way Steve's bent forward. It makes Tony's heart do weird things, like it's samba-ing in his chest or something.

“Lightheaded,” Steve says to his knees. “Can't feel my forehead at all, but the rest smarts.”

“What did I tell you,” Tony complains. Bruce shoots him a quelling look.

“I'm not surprised,” Clint says. “Don't know how you got off without a concussion.”

Steve smiles, nodding at Bruce cautiously as he brings his head up. “A small blessing.”

A very small, squishy part of Tony that he hasn't managed to stamp out goes a little softer at that. Tony may not believe in God, but he admires Steve's quiet faith, appreciates like hell the comfort his husband gets from it. “You hang out with a Norse god on a regular basis,” Tony's said in the past. “You've been to his palace in another dimension. Met his relatives. How can you still think there's one God?”

Steve had just looked back at him with steady eyes and a firm jaw and said, “It's different. And it's called faith for a reason.”

Anyone else and Tony'd dismiss them as a self-deluded idiot, willfully ignorant. But there's something about Steve, maybe his inherent wholesomeness, maybe the fact that he's not afraid to talk about his God, but never asks anyone to come to Jesus, or maybe it's just that Tony's head over heels for the guy, has been for years.

Either way, he's not about to try and take it away from him.

“Pepper's going to kill you,” Natasha says then, inspecting her fingernails.

Tony blinks. “What? Why?”

Natasha looks up, a smile cutting across her lips. “It's one.”

“What?” Tony says, looking down at his watch even though he's sure she's right. “Oh, hell.” He glances toward the door because when Pepper said she'd send Happy after him she was almost, probably, definitely not bluffing. “Steve—”

“At least let me clean up a little, Tony,” he says, chiding Tony for patience with his tone and his expression and somehow managing to look the picture of it himself.

“Well, get to it!” Tony says, snapping his fingers. “Pep's going to have my head!”

Bruce hands over an antiseptic wipe, trying to smother a smile and doing a piss-poor job of it.

The only thing Steve's really managed to do by the time the MedBay door opens is smear the blood around a little. Happy pokes his head in and Tony immediately flings both hands up, index fingers out. “I swear to god, if you try to pick me up I will punch you in the throat, so help me.”

Happy looks completely unimpressed, the son of a bitch. “I gave you an extra fifteen minutes, sir. You were supposed to be back at one sharp. Come on.”

“Just let me get this photo for my kid!” Tony whines and Happy sighs, but waves his hand in a well, go on then motion.

“Say cheese, Frankie,” Tony says and Steve drops his hands, giving up on the clean up, tries a smile. He looks ridiculously young and exhausted and Tony can tell there's something weighing him down, but it's going to have to wait for later.

“All right,” Happy says as soon as the phone makes the simulated shutter noise and takes Tony by the elbow. “Let's go, Mr. Stark, before Miss Potts has both our asses.”

Tony lets Happy drag him toward the door, yelling as they go through, “You owe me a kiss, asshole!”

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