1. Casualty

"Shit!" Peter exclaimed as an explosion ripped through the air, a parked taxi propelled from the blast and flying towards him a moment later. He quickly jumped out of the way, the fender brushing past his arm as he just barely managed to dodge it.

"Language!" Tony scolded through the comm as he fought more bots one block over. Then, a second later, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Peter said, "Almost just became flying roadkill. How many you got left?"

"Five. But I should be done with them soon," he responded.

Peter didn't team up with Iron Man often. Well actually, the one and only time he'd ever teamed up with Iron Man was that battle in Germany against Captain America. Not for Peter's lack of checking in, of course, because he did that almost every day. Just a quick text to Happy, letting him know that he was ready and willing should Tony need him, maybe with an appropriate emoji tacked on to the end. Happy never texted back, so Peter figured it was okay for him to keep doing it. Just in case.

This mission didn't really start as a team up either. It was more like a, 'a-bunch-of-bio-robot things-just-attacked-downtown Manhattan-and-the-police-got-overwhelmed-so-Iron-Man-and Spider-Man-happen-to-show-up-around-the-same-time-to-fix-things' kind of deal. Whatever. Peter wasn't going to look a superhero gift horse in the mouth.

They'd been doing well, clearing out all the civilians and beating the bio-robots by targeting a weak point on the joint at the base of their necks, but these things seemed to have some heavy artillery and a penchant for creating small explosions, and Peter was not envying whoever was going to be paying for the property damage they were causing.

Actually, that was probably going to be Mr. Stark. Perks of being a billionaire.

Peter was down to four of the bots, and as he swung around on a building he managed to get behind two of them and blast their weak point with some web fluid: they went down. Two to go.

As Peter started to stake out one of the remaining ones, his spider sense blew up in his head, and he whipped around to face the other bot at the same moment as it fired out a shot, the crack of it resounding through the air. He webbed at a nearby building, desperately trying to pull himself out of the way as he saw the bullet coming straight at his heart. He launched through the air, and for a minute, thought he had been fast enough.

"Ha, have to be quicker than that to bring Spider-Man down!"

Then, a white-hot pain spiked through his left leg.

"Ffffff-udge," Peter groaned as he pulled himself onto the roof of which he'd been swinging off, needing just a minute to collect himself.

"Language."

"I didn't even…! Forget it," Peter said dismissively, drawing in a sharp breath as he shifted his leg so he could see the injury better. The bullet had gone through the fleshy part of his left thigh, a few inches above and slightly to the left of his knee. He didn't think it had hit the bone, but it was bleeding pretty badly, and it hurt a hell of a lot. Two of those robots were still out there though, and with Tony dealing with his own, Peter knew he'd just have to suck up the pain and get on with it. Tony had been hesitant about letting Peter fight when he'd first shown up, and there was no way Peter was going to sit back and show weakness in front of his mentor. Besides, city needed him.

He nearly swore again as he shot the bullet hole with web fluid, knowing from experience that it would work well for at least temporary bandage.

"Are you okay?...again?" Tony said through the comm, "I thought I heard a…noise, or something."

"No, all good here, perfectly good, fine, almost done actually. Race you to see who can kill their bots first?"

Tony didn't answer, so Peter took that as a sign to start moving again. He stumbled when he first tried to stand as pain shot through his leg, but with a deep breath, he eased himself up and took a second to get used to the uncomfortable sensation. As soon as this was over, he decided, he was going to go home, sleep for a few hours, and let his healing ability kick in.

Peering over the edge of the rooftop, he noticed the bot that shot him was just below on the pavement, having seemingly lost interest in him as it fired more artillery into shop windows. He tried to scale down the wall quietly, but his foot slipped on a chunk of brickwork that had been blown away, and he let out a yelp. The bot heard him and immediately turned to his direction. Only about ten feet from the ground at this point and with nothing else to lose, he jumped to the ground, putting as much of the impact onto his right leg as possible. He flipped out of the way as it started shooting at him once again, dodging behind a row of parked cars and staying down as he tried to gain some ground. It paused for a moment, seeming to have lost him, and he used that opportunity to sneak up behind it and nail it right in the weak spot, sending it down.

Suddenly, and small explosion sounded behind Peter. He whipped around at the noise to see the final robot, headless, with a glowing Iron Man hovering behind its decapitated body.

"I win." Tony said.

"Hey, that was super cool Mr. Stark; any chance you could give my suit that kind of firepower?"

"No way. You'll shoot your eye out." He teased.

"Ha ha," Peter said dryly as he made his way over, "Y'know, this was fun, we should do this again sometime."

"Sure, kid. Next time rampaging monsters are trying to destroy half the city, we'll be sure to make a date of it," Tony responded sarcastically. Suddenly, Peter's phone buzzed. He pulled it out and read the text that appeared on his screen.

"Aw crap, I'm late for dinner and May's getting worried. I gotta go!" he turned around to leave, trying to remember where he stowed his backpack, when suddenly Tony's faceplate rose, leaving his voice to ring out crystal clear:

"Hold on, is that blood?"

Peter froze and looked down at his leg. Blood had started to leak through the webbing, and when combined with the stuff that was already on his pant leg when it had first happened, it didn't look very pretty.

He coughed. "Yeah, a bit…"

"What happened?" Tony demanded.

"I was just shot a little by one of the bots, I'm fine, really…"

"I asked you before if you were okay. Why didn't you tell me you had been shot!" He came closer to Peter and bent down slightly to inspect it. Peter squirmed away from him.

"I didn't say anything because it's not that big of a deal! I've been hurt before, I can handle it…" he started to defend.

"There's no exit wound. Were you expecting to remove a bullet from your bunk bed? Maybe use your aunt's tweezers and a compact mirror?" Tony responded harshly. Peter withered under the tone.

"I-I thought…my healing ability…"

"It's not gonna help you metabolize metal, kid. Look, I don't care if you get a scrape, or a bruise, or anything that can heal within a few hours. You can handle that yourself. But you get shot, or stabbed or something like that? You tell someone. Me, Happy, hell, if you can make up some sort of excuse you can tell your aunt. I don't care if you think it might be okay, if it would send a normal person to the hospital, you don't get to make that call. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir."

"God, don't call me sir—reminds me too much of my dad," he muttered, "But one more thing: if god forbid you ever get hurt again when we're fighting together, do not lie to me when I ask if you're okay. It might not be safe to stop and you might have to keep fighting anyway, but you do not keep me in the dark."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark," Peter said, hanging his head.

Tony sighed. The kid looked like a kicked puppy, "Just…let's get you to the tower. This might hurt."

And with that, his faceplate closed, and he swept Peter up into his metal arms, headed toward Avengers Tower.

…

"BRUCE!" Tony yelled into the living room of the tower as soon as they stepped in from the balcony. Peter jumped at the suddenness of it, having been shifted to the ground from Tony's arms, but still with an arm around his shoulder. A minute later, a voice could be heard, growing louder as a mousy, bespectacled man rounded the corner into the living room.

"…look, I said I'm sorry multiple times for leaving you already, just please don't make me watch another episode of Great British Bake Off…"

"Hey, that is quality television!" Tony defended. "But anyway, it's not about that. Bruce, meet Peter. Peter, Bruce Banner."

Peter's eyes went wide as the man stopped in front of him, all bad feelings from his earlier chastisement forgotten. "Wait, the Bruce Banner? Like, gamma radiation, super cool scientist Bruce Banner?"

"That's me," the man said with a slight smile, holding out his hand.

"Dude," Peter said, shaking the scientist's hand with the one of his that wasn't currently around Tony's shoulder. "I'm like, a huge fan. I've read all of your journals."

"Well, it's nice to finally meet you. Tony's talked a lot about you."

Peter's eyes snapped to Tony, then back to Bruce, "Wait, really? What did he say?"

"That you're an idiot," Tony interrupted, "An idiot who was about to walk off a gunshot wound without telling anyone."

"Really? You don't look like you're in that much pain," Bruce observed.

"Ah, yeah. Excitement overriding pain right now. Kind of starting to come back though," he winced as he tried to adjust his stance, "But it's really not that bad…"

"Gunshot wounds can be tricky. Your healing abilities might be able to mend the skin with time, but it won't necessarily help with any possible infection. I assumed you called me to take care of it?" Bruce asked, looking to Tony.

"You got it Science Bro. C'mon kid, to the infirmary."

"Science Bro? Can I be a Science Bro?" Peter asked.

"No. Science Bros have common sense," Tony retorted.

What followed in the next two minutes was an awkward shuffle to the elevator down to the infirmary, where Peter tried to walk as much as possible but just ended up mostly leaning on Tony.

"Do you have suture supplies in here?" Bruce asked, rummaging through some drawers against the wall.

"If you don't see any we must've just run out. There should be some extra stuff in the closet down the hall."

As Bruce left the room to go hunt down the needed supplies, Peter successfully managed to pull off his spider suit and webbing bandage in the process. It started to bleed freely again, not as badly as it was before, but enough to make Tony swear at seeing it.

"Language," Peter mocked.

"Shut up, kid," Tony snapped.

"Okay, I found it." Bruce said, reemerging into the room with a bundle full of supplies.

He frowned when he noticed the blood slowly leaking from the wound. Setting his supplies down on a table next to the bed, he slipped on a pair of gloves and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. "Let's take a look at the damage, then." As Bruce started to examine Peter's leg, a sudden, probably irrational thought occurred to the teenager: Oh my god. I'm not wearing pants in front of Bruce Banner. Tony barked out a laugh, and Peter clapped a hand over his mouth as he felt his face heat up, realizing he'd just said that out loud.

"Don't worry, I worked as a doctor in the slums of India for a while, and I've lived in quite a few other third-world countries besides. Nothing phases me." He said, kindly but with a wry grin on his face as he pulled back from his examination.

"Well, unfortunately the bullet's still in there, so I'll need to remove it before I can do anything else. Tony mentioned you have advanced healing powers?"

Peter nodded.

"I'll give you an anesthetic before I go digging around, but I'm afraid your body might process it too quickly, and it might not do you much good. I'll try to be as quick as I can, alright?"

He prepared a syringe and smoothly injected it into Peter's arm. Peter could feel the drug take effect almost immediately: dulling the pain, but not stopping it completely. Bruce measured his reaction carefully. "How do you feel?"

"Better," Peter said, "But I still do feel, if that's what you're asking. And it feels like pain."

"I'd better get started then," Bruce commented. "Tony, could you help make sure he stays still?"

Tony came forward, and at Bruce's direction held the lower part of Peter's leg down to the cot in a firm grip. Peter closed his eyes as the scientist went in to remove the bullet, sure that watching would make him want to vomit. His spider sense went off as the pain spiked, and every instinct was screaming at him to move, to try to escape it, but Tony held him still, and he willed his body to calm down. He couldn't help it when a whine escaped his lips after a particularly sharp spike.

"Almost done Peter, just a little bit…there," Bruce said triumphantly, and the next thing he heard was the clink of the bullet dropping into a dish. "Now I'm just going to clean the wound and stitch it up. I don't think you've lost enough blood to warrant a transfusion, so this shouldn't take too long."

The stitching was nothing in comparison. Bruce seemed to have a practiced hand and finished the job quickly and rather painlessly. "And these sutures dissolve naturally, so you won't even have to worry about getting them taken out," he mentioned.

"My recipe. Better than what the hospitals have; I'm working on the patent," Tony bragged.

"And it's best if you keep off the leg as much as possible," Bruce added, "Just try to stay in bed and relax for the weekend."

Bed. Home. May. Oh no. "May!" Peter shouted.

"Don't worry, I texted her on the way over here. Said I was keeping you for some internship stuff," Tony said, and Peter relaxed visibly.

"Also, you're benched for a week."

"What!"

"Maybe next time you won't be an idiot when you get hurt…and I need to fix the suit."

Peter flopped back on the bed and sighed. He knew Tony could probably fix the suit in a few hours, and was only drawing it out to a week to punish him. He got it, though: he messed up.

"Now let's see if we can find you some clothes to go home in. I think Pepper left a pair of sweat pants lying around somewhere…"

Peter groaned. This was never going to end.