#& honestly ur so sweet that i can't imagine how anyone could dislike u

[losingmymindtonight]

Ok, but speaking of The West Wing, that scene when Pres. Bartlett is being rolled into emergency surgery on a freaking gurney after being SHOT and is just like "If I don't speak to my daughter in the next minute I'm gonna start throwing punches" cause Zoey was throwing up... Have you ever seen something more Irondad than that?

I’ve been wanting to write this since I saw that episode and since one of my favorite authors brought it up, I must fulfill. And THEN I hear that it was your birthday, so now it’s MANDATORY that I offer you writing as a ceremonial gift. It’s not nearly as much as you deserve, but I hope it’s something!

WARNINGS: gun violence, hospitals, surgeries, mentions of vomit, mentions of shock

–

Tony had been in a lot of firefights in his time, but he never got used to them.

He didn’t really know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If it showed that he’d retained some of his humanity, or if it proved that he had always been ill-suited to the superhero job.

Then again, when the popping of gunfire went off and the world exploded into shattered glass and screaming, none of that philosophical pondering really mattered anymore.

Someone shoved him to the ground within a second of the first shot. The breath whooshed out of his lungs, sidewalk digging into his palms. There was shouting in his ears, the scrabble of shoes right next to his face, and then he was being hauled up. Shielded. Pushed up, down, forward. His knees his concrete, grass, asphalt. He scrabbled to call the suit, but then he remembered that he didn’t have it. He didn’t have it.

Screw Ross and his laws. Screw the Accords. Just… Just screw it all.

More gunfire. To his left, someone screamed.

A car door swung open right in front of his face, and someone shoved him inside.

Tires squealed. The car jerked as it hit a curb.

He gasped in air. Someone was talking to his right. The same someone that had pushed him down, had been shouting.

In the adrenaline drop of after, he realized that it was Rhodey. Because of course it was Rhodey. Of course.

The Colonel (which was a title that would never sit right in Tony’s gut, because the man would always just be his best friend, would always be the nerdy 18 year old who scooped him up at MIT and never let him go) was sitting beside him in the backseat, hand resting heavy on his shoulder. He looked easy and calm, especially for a man who had just been shot at. That’s probably what the military did for you, he supposed. Maybe he should’ve enlisted after all, just like Howard had wanted.

Then again, Tony had always been terrible at taking orders.

“Easy, Tony. You’re alright.”

He shook his head, tried to get a grip back on reality. His ears were still ringing, he could still hear the popping of bullets in his skull. “What-What the he-”

“Tony,” Rhodey said, firm and commanding, “breathe.”

“I am breathing,” he snapped. 

He felt like he’d lost something. Like he needed to-

He snapped back into himself like whiplash. It hurt, to hit reality at full speed, but the pain was drowned out by the terror.

Peter.

He scrabbled for Rhodey’s sleeve, fingernails tearing into his suit jacket. “Peter, Peter, Rhodey-”

He didn’t have to say anything else. Rhodey lunged forward, grabbed a walkie-talkie out of the front of the car, reaching past a driver that Tony didn’t even know the name of to do it, and started talking into it so fast that Tony’s shock-addled brain could barely keep up.

“This is Colonel Rhodes. I have Tony in the car. Is Peter secure? Does anyone have Peter Parker?”

Crackle of static. Then,

“Affirmative. I have Parker.”

Tony could’ve fainted with relief. His head swum, vision blurring at little at the edges. His chest ached, too. Probably from hitting the pavement so hard. Or, heck, maybe it was just from worry. Peter was bound to be the death of him someday.

He jerked the walkie-talkie out of Rhodey’s hands. “Get him on the line. I want to talk to him.”

“Sorry, Sir,” the voice said, and Tony didn’t recognize it, which made his heart skip, because the last time he’d seen Peter, the kid had been with Happy, going ahead to the car while Tony stopped to shake hands with the crowds gathered outside the gala. “He can’t talk right now.”

The color leeched out of the world. If Peter had been hit… if… if Peter had been hit…

Rhodey leaned forward, not pulling the walkie-talkie out of Tony’s iron-tight grasp, but slipping his hand over Tony’s so he could use it. “Is he hit?”

“No, Sir, he’s not hit.”

The reassurance only settled some of Tony’s fear. “Then why can’t he talk?”

“He’s… He’s vomiting in the car, Sir.”

“What the he-”

Rhodey gripped his shoulder again, shaking him a little to catch his attention. “Easy, Tony, this happens sometimes.”

What an absurd thing to say. How could anyone be so calm about his child vomiting in a car. There was nothing normal about his child vomiting in a car. 

Had he mentioned that his child was vomiting in a car?

He grit his teeth until his jaw ached. “What do you mean this happens sometimes?”

“I mean that it happens,” Rhodey snapped. “He might’ve gotten an elbow in the stomach, but it’s probably just shock.”

Just shock. Shock. They’d just been shot at, almost certainly because of Tony, and now his kid was in shock.

He regretted everything. He didn’t even know what everything encompassed, but he knew that he regretted it all the same.

“Is Happy with him?”

There was more static. The empty crackling was driving Tony mad.

“Hogan put him in the car.”

His stomach flipped. “But he’s not with him?”

“No, Sir. But he’s got two security guards with him, Sir, as well as me.”

Rhodey’s brow furrowed. “Why isn’t Happy in the car?”

“Hogan put the kid in the car then stayed behind for the ID agent. He thinks he saw something, something that might be-”

They hit a pothole. Pain, sharp and hot, lanced up his side. He gasped, reaching up to grab the spot with a wince. He kept his eyes trained desperately on the walkie-talkie, as if he could stare through the plastic and see Peter on the other side.

He heard Rhodey take a sharp breath, and then his chin was being gripped, gaze jerked away from the only line he had to Peter, to his kid-

“Tony?” Rhodey’s eyes searched his face. There was something wet on his lips. “Tony, did you get hit?”

He blinked at him. What? Did he get hit? Peter was vomiting in the backseat of a car, doors and steel and roads away from him, and Rhodey was asking stupid questions like did you get hit?

Hands dragged up his side, came away wet, and suddenly, Rhodey didn’t look very calm anymore.

“Turn around!” He shouted to the driver. “We’ve got a GSW.” Rhodey was grabbing his face again, forcing their eyes together. “Tony, breathe. Don’t pass out.”

He glared. “I’m not gonna pass out.”

The car jerked in a 180, tires squealing against the damp pavement. Rhodey steadied him as they tilted.

“Where’s Peter going?” He gasped, vision still swimming from the sudden change of inertia. “Where are they taking Peter?”

“To the Tower.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the hospital.”

“No, no. Take Peter… he needs to get looked at, too. And I wanna see him.”

I have to see him.

For a second, it looked like Rhodey was going to argue. Then, he just nodded, acquiescent, and used the hand not pressed against Tony’s abdomen to grab the walkie-talkie again.

“Bring Peter to the hospital. We’re taking Tony there now.”

Static. Then, the same voice as before.

“Affirmative. The kid wants to know why.”

Tony jerked a hand up, wrapped bloody fingers around Rhodey’s wrist. “Rhodey, don’t tell him.”

“He’ll find out when he gets to the hospital anyway, Tony,” he hissed, then spoke his next words into the walkie-talkie. “It’s a minor gunshot wound. Tell the kid that he’s conscious, talking, and still being a pain in my ass.”

He grinned.

Yeah, that’d make the kid feel better.

–

There was a stretcher and a medical team waiting for him as soon as they arrived.

Apparently, being a high-profile superhero billionaire won you some pretty good emergency medical care. Who knew.

It did not, however, win you any breaks in the pain department. Moving him onto the gurney still absolutely sucked. He’d been shot before, which probably wasn’t something a lot of people in the world could say, but he always seemed to forget just how much it hurt.

Rhodey was talking rapidly to one of the nurses as they wheeled him into the hospital and down a hallway.

“He’s got a GSW in his abdomen. Entry and exit wounds.”

The nurse nodded. “BP is 134 over 78. Pulse is 108. What’s his pulse ox?”

“98,” someone else shouted, just out of Tony’s view.

A man in a white coat was jogging beside the gurney. He was the first person to actually address him, smiling thinly. “Mister Stark, I’m Doctor Keller. I’m the trauma surgeon on duty. Considering the circumstances, everything is looking pretty steady. The exit wound is a good sign when it comes to any possible internal damage and we’re really liking your vitals.”

He felt like snarling. None of this was what he wanted. He didn’t care about the hole in his stomach. He cared that somewhere, his kid was vomiting all alone in the back of a car. 

“I swear to all that is holy,” he spat, “if I don’t speak to my kid in the next five minutes, I’m gonna attack someone.”

“He’s on his way, Tony,” Rhodey reassured.

“He’d better be.”

They rolled him into a trauma room, stopping in the middle and not wasting another second before swarming him. He heard the click of the stretcher’s breaks, the chatter of voices saying bits and pieces of things he understood and things he didn’t. Pairs and pairs and pairs of unfamiliar hands were touching him, poking and prodding and attaching monitors. There was a sting in the crook of his elbow as one of the nurses started an IV.

“Okay, Sir,” Doctor Keller said, patting his shoulder, “we’re just gonna get you stabilized. Do you have any medical conditions?”

“Well,” he drawled, “I’ve been shot. Does that count?”

Rhodey snorted.

He reached out and grabbed a nurse’s wrist as she reached for his IV, then re-found Doctor Keller’s face. “I want you to wait until I’ve seen my kid before you give me the anesthesia. Do you understand?”

Thankfully, the surgeon seemed to understand who was in charge in this situation, and it certainly wasn’t him or his staff.

“Of course.”

He let of the rest of the minutes blur by, nodding along with whatever Doctor Keller and his nurses said and trusting Rhodey to actually be paying attention.

Then the doors swung open, and a receptionist pushed Peter through.

Despite the pain still burning up his side, he could breathe again.

The kid was pale, shaking. His wide eyes blew even wider when he took in the scene in front of him: nurses and blood and all. 

“Tony?”

“I’m okay,” he called gently, pain getting shoved in the backseat, everything getting shoved in the backseat in favor of this kid, his kid.

“Tony?!” Peter repeated, more frantic this time despite Tony’s attempt to comfort him, and he rushed forward, slipping past the nurses and Rhodey and bumping into the gurney’s guard rail in his haste to get close.

“They didn’t hit anything,” he soothed, reaching up to brush some of Peter’s hair out of his face. “They’re just gonna look around and make sure.”

Peter’s eyes darted down to the bloodstain on his shirt and up to his face. “Are you… Are you in a lot of pain?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Are you lying?”

“Of course he is,” Rhodey snarked, stepping up to grip Peter’s arm. “He wants you to tell all your friends how brave he was.”

“Duh. Plus, I want all these guys,” he gestured to the nurses, “to feed the reporters a story of how I was up-beat and joking around.”

“You are brave,” Peter said, looking close to tears.

“Peter, I’m fine,” he murmured, heart aching at how distressed the kid seemed. “I’m just so happy to see you, buddy.”

A nurse tentatively tapped his arm. “Sir? We really need to begin.”

“Right, right.” He glanced up at Rhodey. “Make him,” he jerked his chin towards Peter, “get checked out. Don’t let him talk you out of it.”

Peter was shaking his head, frantic. “No, no. I wanna stay.”

He smiled to cover up just how much the plea pierced him. “Won’t be able to fall asleep if you’re here, bud. You’re just too exciting to have around. Go on with Rhodey. I’ll see you when I wake up.”

“But-”

“Nuh-uh. No ifs, ands, or buts. I’m the adult here. Plus,” he reached out and poked Peter’s side, “I have a hole in my stomach, so I think I get the veto card right about now.”

“That’s not funny,” the kid whispered, weakly letting Rhodey pull him back, away from Tony, towards the doors.

“I thought it was pretty funny.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Well, I’ll work on my jokes.” He waved as Peter paused in the doorway. “See you later, squirt. Be good for Rhodey.”

“Don’t die,” Peter called back, voice hitching dangerously.

He nearly laughed at the absurdity of the request. “It’ll take a lot more than this to kill me, kid. Trust me on that.”

The doors slid shut, obscuring the kid’s face from view. And with Peter gone, with Peter safe, there was nothing left to cling to.

He gave the nearest nurse and thumbs up and let the drugs wash him down.

–

When he surfaced again, Pepper was there.

She smiled when she sensed his eyes on her, reaching forward to intertwine their fingers. “Hey, honey.”

He swallowed past the stinging in his throat. “Peter?”

“May’s got him in the waiting room,” she murmured, as if she’d been expecting the question. “They wouldn’t let him in until you were awake.”

He nodded, trying to kick his brain into gear despite the pain meds slogging through his system. “Is everyone okay?”

“There weren’t any fatalities. A few injuries, but nothing serious. Happy hit his head, but it’s only a minor concussion. They treated Peter for shock while you were in surgery, but he’s just fine now.”

The information absorbed slowly, but Pepper waited patiently. Always waiting, always patient.

“Did they catch them?”

“The gunmen?” It wasn’t an actual question, not really, but he nodded anyway as Pepper continued. “Yes. One’s dead, but the other’s been taken in for questioning.”

“Did they say why they did it?”

Something dark fell over Pepper’s face. “Yes.”

“And?”

She brushed a hand through his hair, biting worriedly at her lip. “You have to promise to stay calm.”

Foreboding was brewing in his stomach. Pepper never danced around an issue like this. She was always straightforward, bit between her teeth. 

“Please just tell me,” he whispered.

“You weren’t the target.”

He blinked, trying to process what the hell that meant.

“Then who was?”

“It was… It was Peter, sweetheart. They were trying to get Peter.”

Everything froze. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, wasn’t enough gravity to stop them all from peeling away from the ground. That… That couldn’t be. Peter wasn’t a target, wasn’t something that was meant to be viewed through a pair of crosshairs. Peter was a child.

“Why would they-”

Pepper was already talking, voice low. “Tony, these people are crazy-”

“But they tried to… they tried to k-”

“Yes, Tony, but we caught them, so they aren’t going to be able to try it again-”

“That’s not enough,” he hissed, bringing a hand up to cradle his tender side. “That’s… That’s not enough.”

“Oh, honey…”

“I want to see him.” He gripped the thin hospital sheets in his fist. “Please, Pep. I need to see him.”

“Alright,” she said softly, pushing to her feet, “I’ll go get him, but then you need to rest.”

“Wait. Pepper,” he called, stalling her in the doorway. “Does he know?”

Does he know who those bullets were meant for? Does he know that he wasn’t meant to make it into that car alive?

“No,” she said, voice grave.

“Let’s… Let’s keep it that way, yeah?”

She jerked her head in response. “I’m on it.”

–

It looked like Peter’s whole body went dizzy with relief when Pepper pushed him into the room. It seemed to be contagious, too, because the sight of the kid’s eyes, wide and hopeful, made his chest go fuzzy.

“See?” He grinned, gesturing at himself with his IV free arm. “Even old men can got shot and survive nowadays. Modern medicine is just that good.”

“You’re okay,” Peter breathed, and he sounded so airy and out-of-body that Tony was genuinely worried that he might just faint.

He kept up his smile, beckoning gently, trying to get the kid close enough that he could catch him if he did. “Sure am.”

“You’re okay.”

There was something manic filling up Peter’s gaze. Something that made Tony even more desperate to comfort, to protect. “Uh-huh,” he said, and the softness in his voice surprised even himself. “Everything’s alright now, buddy.”

The kid pressed himself up against the hospital bed’s barrier. “That was, uh, that was… scary.”

Peter sounded so small, and Tony was suddenly assaulted by the image of what the kid must’ve looked like while he was in surgery: frightened, alone, in shock.

He hadn’t forgotten how the kid’s uncle had died. And from the expression on Peter’s face, neither had he.

“Are you okay?” He asked, and he didn’t know entirely what he was looking for in an answer. Of course Peter wasn’t okay. At least, he wasn’t okay like that. Maybe he was asking for a different kind of okay. A superficial kind.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

He smirked a little, reaching out to lightly poke Peter’s stomach. “No more puking?”

A blush flushed through the kid’s face, and the embarrassment was a nice change from the fear. “Shut up. At least I didn’t get myself shot.”

The words hit a little hard, considering the conversation he and Pepper had just had, but he forced himself to hide it. “To be fair, that wasn’t actually in my plan.”

“But it still happened,” Peter whispered.

“Wow,” he said, cracking a smile, trying desperately to coax the dejected look off of the kid’s face, “it’s almost like you’re starting to understand how I feel every time you go out on patrol and come home with a stab wound in your gut.”

“But that happens when I’m Spider-Man,” Peter said, voice tight and stricken.

And Tony understood. He understood the hidden meaning in the words.

“It’s not supposed to happen when we’re outside of the suits,” he murmured, finishing the kid’s unspoken thought with a gentle voice.

“Yeah.” The kid gave a jerky nod, as if solidifying something in his head. “Yeah, it’s not.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. There was… There was nothing to say. Peter was right. Why should any kid ever have to reconcile himself with the fact that people were going to shoot at them?

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he whispered, because that was all he had. It was the only truth left that wouldn’t hurt.

The corner of Peter’s mouth quirked up, and it was the first sign of a positive emotion that the kid had given him since entering the room. “Yeah, well, it was obviously your fault.”

He smiled. “Obviously.”

They’d figure it out, he supposed. His wound would heal, he’d quietly exert whatever authority he could to destroy whatever organization had targeted Peter in the first place, and the terror still lingering in the kid’s eyes would fade and flicker and die. They’d gone through worse things and survived. Peter certainly had, as much as that fact pained him.

They’d figure it out, because they didn’t have any other choice. Because they had to.

And, of course, because they always did.

#i've had this sitting for a few weeks but then i saw that Senia was having a rough time so i came back to it #it's a welcome back to Tumblr present!! #i'm sorry people suck and i hope that they stop ASAP #i love u & stan #ur stories make me v v v happy #& honestly ur so sweet that i can't imagine how anyone could dislike u #anyway i'm done waxing lyrical #also i tried to yeet out all the cursing for u #so i hope i didn't accidentally miss something!!! #& ALSO HAPPY BIRTHDAY #I’m gonna try to write u some fluff later too #💕❤️❤️ #irondad #tony stark #peter parker #tony & peter #losingmymindtonight writes