Author's Note: I don't own or profit on anything MCU related. Just loves me some Irondad content...

Summary:Peter's been trapped under a frozen lake for far too long. Tony's ready to punish him, until he hears his favorite kiddo's desperate gasps in the arms of Captain America upon arrival to the compound.

Reviving A Spiderling

There are more than a few things Tony wants to scream at Peter as Steve carries the rigid, shivering boy into the Avengers compound one frigid January morning.

What were you thinking, jumping into a frozen lake without your suit!?

Why didn't you call for help first?

If Cap hadn't of been there-

His temper dissipates the moment he hears the string of short and high pitched gasps, coming from Peter's lips as he clenches and unclenches his fists in agony.

"Set him here," Tony orders, throwing down a stack of thick comforters onto the carpet of the grand entryway. He falls to his knees and holds his arms up to receive the teenager.

"Shouldn't we-"

"Give him to me!"

Tony regrets the snap in his voice, but he's well past panic and Bruce hasn't arrived yet. Waiting even another second for the doctor's help was something he was incapable of.

Against his better judgment, Steve hands the smallest Avenger over to Tony's open arms. Peter can barely sit up by himself, so his mentor supports him by propping him up against his chest.

The boy tries to help Tony unzip his coat, but his fingers only hinder the process and are quickly shoved aside.

"Just let me, kid. I've got it." Tony says, shredding the frozen layers off of Peter's shivering frame.

"Arms up."

Peter obeys, but can barely stretch out his limbs as they instinctively curl towards his core.

Tony forces them to straighten the rest of the way and strips off the sweatshirt and T-shirt while Steve kneels down to take off the boy's shoes and socks, helping with pulling off the corduroy pants when the other man struggles a bit with them. Tony is both relieved and terrified that Peter's in too critical a condition to care.

"'-s' cold-s' cold-I can't brea-I can't brea-"

"Hang on, bud. I know. Just a sec." Tony says, keeping a hand on Peter's chest and tossing the last of the clothes into a heap.

There isn't an ounce of warmth in the boy's fair skin and his hair still holds ice crystals in places as it soaks through Tony's shirt.

Steve unfolds one of the white blankets and the two men manage to wrap the boy up burrito style before they're running him to the medical room.

"Talk to me, FRI," Tony calls the AI as they reach their destination. "Give me somethin'."

"The antifreeze building up in his system is too little for a spider's survival and dangerous for the human body. It's poisoning him. I suspect he needs direct heat to revive his normal functions and detract the antifreeze his body is trying to produce."

"Can we put him in a suit?" Tony asks, frantically digging through drawers and pulling out supplies they might need.

"What about a hot bath?" Steve asks.

"I believe the suits are not able to bring his temperature up at a steadier pace and the hot water will likely put his body into a state of shock." FRIDAY replies.

"Put him in that new device you've been working on," a voice says behind them.

"Bruce!" Tony shouts when he sees his friend enter into the room.

"That thing is our best bet." Bruce continues, whipping out a flashlight from his pocket and moving to the bundle moaning in Steve's arms.

He gently pries open one of Peter's eyelids and shines the light into it. "Dilated…"

"I'm not putting the kid into something we haven't even tested out yet," Tony says as he pulls some medical equipment off the nearby wall.

Bruce blinks a few times and studies Tony's set jaw and the way his chest rises and falls like he's been running a freaking marathon.

"Tony," he says in the softest tone he can manage, "It's an incubator…not a time machine. The kid's gonna be just fine."

"It is not an-"

"It's an incubator."

The box-like mechanism had been one of Tony's just-in-case inventions. It's got all kinds of functions intended for burns, radiation, general pain relief and, yes, even hypothermia. And if this device was created directly after meeting this young, bundled up troublemaker, well, that was purely coincidental. And if there were settings for advanced 'Spider-ling' needs, just thrown in on a freaking whim, than perhaps that could, very well, save Peter's life at this point in time, but Tony doesn't like it.

Steve watches the two for a moment before he's staring down at Peter, who's currently trying to say something with barely any breath left in his lungs. The Captain squeezes him tight in response. "We need to make a decision. The kid's fading, Tony."

There's a pregnant pause followed by a loud crash echoing off the walls as Tony tosses down the various items he has in his arms and kicks them across the room for good measure.

"Over here," he says in a huff, moving over to the opposite end of the room to a large, clear enclosure with tubes, wires, and soft blue light glowing down inside the device.

Steve has two immediate thoughts: It's definitely an incubator, but it's anything but complete. He's suddenly not really sure if either of his friends is in their right mind.

"Fri, activate the device with everything Peter needs according to what's on his charts," Tony says. "We'll have to work our way up with the temp. Don't blast him with all of it at once."

Steve sets his charge on the ground, but the moment he and Banner expose him to the air, Peter's crying.

Tony grips the side of the glass box and takes a few deep, uneven breaths, hoping that Bruce and Steve stay oblivious to his reaction of what was, in his opinion, the worst sound in the entire world. His feet carry him a few feet away, hands shuffling at things on the counter to make himself look more composed.

"Just a second, Peter," Bruce says, as Steve lifts him back up and eases him down into the device.

Peter fights it the moment he realizes he's being placed in something sterile and foreign, attempting to kick and twist his way out of strong arms.

"I wan' m' dad…Dad!"

Tony's eyes burn upon hearing the delirious request and he quickly shakes out any absurd thoughts that Peter might actually be calling for him.

"He's right here, kid," Steve says.

Tony freezes up; heart pounding hard in his chest as he whirls around and meet's his friend's gaze.

"I'm not who he's looking-"

"Tony, I swear…just don't." Steve says, and as he does Peter stops his struggles when he catches Tony through the glass, glossy brown eyes peering up into the very depths of his being.

Steve lays the kid down the rest of the way and moves to let Tony take over.

"You trying to break my stuff?" Tony asks the boy before grabbing an oxygen mask hanging from up above and pulling it over Peter's mouth and nose.

"Do me a favor and don't bother answering that just yet," he continues, wondering just how conscious the kid is at the moment.

"Listen to me, alright? I'm gonna close this lid here and pretty soon you're gonna be the toastiest…happy little spider that ever saw this side of a winter and-Pete, Petey, don't cry…c'mon, don't do this to me, kiddo."

Tony reaches down and wraps him up as best he can, shushing and whispering things to bring some kind of comfort. His instincts want the boy wrapped up in ten heated blankets, right about now, not sprawled out and exposed in something that looks like a potential torture device to a Star Wars geek.

"It's just heat, bud," he says, taping some monitors to Peter's chest and laying a folded towel under his head for support. "And I'm staying…right here."

He seals the top closed as he finishes the sentence, trying to ignore the way Peter panics as the machine kicks on.

Bruce brings Tony a chair and in just under ten minutes, he watches Peter surrender to sleep, as his body basks in the warmth it needs to survive. He's perfectly still other than the even rise and fall of his chest and the occasional finger twitch.

"Didn't I say he was right here, kid?" Steve murmurs, looking straight at Tony as he does before turning to leave the room. Bruce smiles and follows the first Avenger, deciding to let the pair be alone for a little while.

As Tony hears the door shut, he copes with what he's facing in the only way he knows how.

"You are so grounded."