AN: This chapter is dedicated to everyone who has been impacted by gun violence.

WARNINGS: active shooter, gunshot wounds, blood, the author using fiction to make political commentary

was supposed to be a boring press conference.

He'd only brought Peter along for the shits and giggles. Tony had thought it'd give the kid a chance to get a glimpse at the media aspect of Stark Industries while staying firmly on the sidelines. After all, Tony did plan to hand the company down to Peter, eventually. He'd have to get used to this kind of stuff.

Tony knew it would be rough on his senses, which is why he'd ordered the kid to wear the sunglasses and the hearing-aids-turned-sound-filters in an attempt to keep the overload at a minimum. At first, the kid had protested that he'd look stupid. The billionaire had just shot back that he'd made the hearing aids to be unnoticeable and Tony himself would be wearing sunglasses.

The phrase "you'll just look like a mini Tony Stark" was what won him the battle.

Tony had dressed Peter in a suit he'd had made for him. The kid had babbled excitedly about how soft the material was, and the display of youthful exuberance had made Tony smile that smile that was reserved just for Peter.

The press conference was five minutes from starting when Tony pulled the kid aside for a final pep talk.

"Alright, kiddo." Tony fiddled with the knot on Peter's tie and couldn't help the rush of affection he felt for the nerdy little kid standing in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Pepper's eyes softening as she watched the pair interact. "So, let's go over this one more time. What's your job?"

"I'm gonna stand between Pepper and Happy and, uh," Peter blushed, but Tony gestured for him to continue with a cheeky grin. The kid groaned and mumbled the rest of his orders, "and, um, look adorable."

Tony gave Peter's cheek a little pat, much to the already embarrassed teenager's horror. "You got it. Those doe eyes of yours are gonna knock 'em dead." Peter let out a strangled whimper and swatted Tony's hand away from his face. The billionaire moved his touch to Peter's shoulder, gentling his tone to catch the kid's attention. "If you need to slip out, the door'll be right behind you. The only time they'll actually be looking at you is when we come in together."

"Why do we have to do that, by the way?" Peter shot a nervous glance to the door looming behind them. "I can just come in with Happy at the end, right?"

"I want to introduce you. I didn't give you an actual internship for nothing, and the press has seen us together enough to start getting curious. You'll come in, stand beside me while I talk about how great you are, and then you can hide behind Happy's skirts as much as you'd like. Capiche?"

Peter gave a jerky nod, and Tony reminded himself to keep half an eye on the kid during the presentation. If he thought Peter was starting to struggle, he'd have Pepper shut it down.

Tony guided Peter towards the door and slid his sunglasses into place, prompting the kid to do the same. "You got those sound filters activated?"

"Yeah."

"Perfect. Here we go, mini me."

The kid followed him through the doors grinning.

The beginning of the conference went brilliantly. Peter stood shyly beside him while Tony crowed about how the kid was "his personal intern" and that was would be "the future face of Stark Industries." He'd been about to shoo the kid back to Happy when Peter stiffened and grabbed his arm.

Tony turned and leaned close to him, making sure the microphone was far enough away that it wouldn't catch the whisper. "Kid?"

Peter's voice came out as a wave of pure, unbridled terror. "Something's wrong."

Before Tony could ask what he meant, someone screamed, the sound of rapid gunfire ricocheted off the walls, and Peter was shoving him away from the podium with more force than he'd ever had the kid use on him before.

Tony managed to keep his head from hitting the floor, but the force of the fall knocked all of the breath from his lungs. He stayed on the ground for longer than he would have liked, gasping in a few hasty breaths, before pushing himself up on aching elbows.

The stage had erupted into chaos. Tony could feel the vibrations of footsteps as reporters and SI employees alike rushed for exits. Security guards were scrambling to bar exits and stem the flow of panicked civilians. The billionaire felt bile rise in his throat when he saw a collection of still forms laying in ever-growing pools of blood. Somewhere in the distance, sirens were howling.

He brought his watch to his face in a frantic jerk and gasped out an order. "F.R.I.D.A.Y.? Call the suit."

"I-I can't, Sir. There appears to be a dampener that's interfering with my signals. I can't make contact with any of the Iron Man suits."

Shit.

Everything was a blur of panic and gunshots and helplessness. For a moment, Tony Stark didn't know what to do.

And then his gaze settled on the kid just feet away from him and his world slid into hyperfocus.

Peter pressed a confused hand to his chest, brow furrowing as he swayed in place. Suddenly, his grip flailed out and latched onto the podium. Even with is new balance point, his knees seemed terrifyingly shaky.

"Peter!" Tony could hear someone shouting for everyone to stay down. Why wasn't the kid lunging to the floor with everyone else? "Peter! Drop!"

And then the teenager did drop. Suddenly. Lifelessly.

As his grip went limp and slid away from the podium's metal sides, there was a bloody handprint left behind.

Tony crawled across the floor on his stomach until his fingers brushed against the unmoving teenager's shoulder. "Kid?" Nothing. He bumped a fist against his arm. "Peter?"

A groan. Okay, good. The kid was still alive. Tony could work with alive.

He pushed himself over Peter as another round of gunshots, accompanied by screams and shattering glass, spewed around the room. As soon as the commotion ended, Tony pushed himself up until he was crouched low over the teenager and tried to survey the damage.

Peter's pain filled eyes locked onto his mentor's face just as his hand curled around the lapel of his jacket. "Mister Stark."

"Are you hit, Peter?" The kid's eyes rolled, and Tony shoved a harsh palm against his collarbone. "Peter! Did you get hit?"

The kid just groaned again, hands scrabbling against the floor and legs jerking weakly. It was all the answer Tony needed. He tore open the front of the kid's jacket and nearly vomited at the sight that greeted him.

There was a fucking bullet hole in the right side of Peter's chest.

Shit. What the hell was Tony supposed to do? The kid had a fucking hole in his chest and there was still an active shooter on site. Tony knew the protocol. No paramedics were going to be allowed in to address casualties until the threat was neutralized.

He didn't know how long that last part might take, but he did know that the position of the entry wound meant that the bullet had punctured the kid's lung. And that meant that they only had so much time before Peter wouldn't be able to breath through the blood filling his chest cavity.

And… and shit. Did the bullet pass through the kid's torso, or did it get buried somewhere in his spinal cord?

Please don't let him be paralyzed.

Another spray of gunfire jolted him out of the thoughts. He didn't have time for this. Peter was bleeding out, and still very much exposed. While Tony knew that moving someone with a gunshot wound and possible spinal trauma was not a good idea, he also knew that both he and Peter were dangerously tempting targets right now.

First step: find cover.

A frantic glance showed that the best spot would be behind the podium, which had somehow been knocked over during the chaos. It was only a few feet away, and offered just enough cover to conceal both Peter and Tony, as long as the billionaire stayed low.

"I'm sorry, Peter, but I'm going to move you and it's going to hurt like a bitch." Another round of gunfire. Where the hell were the cops? "Just keeping breathing."

He grabbed the kid under the armpits and hauled him behind the relative safety of the fallen podium. The whimper of pain that slipped through Peter's lips at the jostling made Tony feel lightheaded with concern.

The moment they were concealed, he jumped into action. There was nothing he could do about the punctured lung, but he could help stem the external bleeding. That would buy Peter a little more time.

That was all they needed. They just needed time.

"Easy, kid. Stay still." He tore off his jacket and folded it into a neat square, laying it against the wound and steeling himself before pressing down on the fabric hard. Peter let out a choked off scream, and Tony hastily shushed him.

The kid coughed, and blood bubbled against his lips. "D-did I g't shot?"

The laugh that raced up Tony's throat was hysterical. "Yeah, kid. I'd say so."

"Huh. Tha' sucks." The kid sucked in a sharp breath that wheezed. "Ow."

"'Ow' sounds about right." Peter's breaths were morphing from quiet wheezing to wet sucking sounds. That wasn't good. That was so completely and totally not good. "You breathing okay?"

"Hard. Hurts."

"No shit." Every one of the kid's pained whines echoed deep in Tony's chest. Anger, hot and vivid and woefully misplaced, raced through his veins. "Why'd you do that, huh? Why the fuck did you do that?"

"Do wha'?"

"Jump in front of me!" He was briefly tempted to shake the damn kid. "Why did you do that?"

"'S you." Peter choked off a moan, but the strangled noise that escaped still made Tony's hands clench around the blood-soaked fabric pressed against the kid's chest. "Ha-had to… protect you."

"Damn it, Peter. It's my job to protect you. I'm the adult. You're the kid. The sooner you get that through your thick skull, the sooner I can stop shortening my lifespan."

"Sorry."

His anger faltered and died instantly. Why the hell was he yelling at a kid who was bleeding out from a bullet wound that was meant for him? "No. No, Peter. Don't be sorry. I'm sorry. Listen, we'll talk about this later. Just focus on staying awake, okay?"

"M'kay."

The next wave of bullets was met with returning gunfire and a series of new, less frantic shouts.

"Hear that, buddy?" Tony pulled one hand away from Peter's chest in order to brush his fingers over the kid's face. He smeared lines of red across the pale skin. God, the jacket had already soaked through. "The police are here. We'll have you fixed up in no time."

Peter just blinked up at his mentor. He tried to suck in air, but the breath gurgled in his lungs and the exhale just pushed up a mouthful of sticky blood. For a heart stopping moment, the kid choked on the liquid. Tony rushed to push him onto his side so he could spit it out onto the ground.

More gunfire. Footsteps race into the room.

Hurry. Please, hurry.

"He's down! Shooter down! I repeat, threat is neutralized. Get the medics in here, now!"

Thank god.

"Help's coming, Peter." Tony tried to ignore how pale and clammy the kid's forehead was as he brushed his hands through Peter's curls. "It's almost here. Hang on, buddy. Hang on."

Another rush of footsteps sounded, and Tony could hear medics shouting to each other as they rushed to stabilize casualties. It broke the billionaire's heart, but he tore himself away from the fading kid just long enough to peek out from behind the podium and call out.

"Help! I've-I've got a kid. He's been shot. He needs help!"

It was only after Peter had been whisked away into a nearby ambulance and Tony was sitting on the blood-stained ground that he realized just how many body bags the police were setting out.

He threw up all over the spot where Peter had been only minutes before.

Happy, who was, thankfully, unharmed, gave him a ride to the hospital. Something in the back of Tony's mind suggested that maybe the man shouldn't be driving after the adrenaline rush an active shooting would have caused, but that was the logical side of his brain and he just couldn't seem to focus on rationality when Peter goddamn Parker could be dying.

Dying from a bullet that was meant for him.

Happy made him change his clothes and wash off the blood, Peter's blood, in the hospital bathroom before guiding him into the waiting room.

It was packed. It occurred to Tony that this must be the hospital that received most of the shooting victims.

God, there were so many people here. So many victims.

May Parker was already there, head bowed and hands fidgeting nervously in her lap. She looked up when she heard his footsteps approaching and leapt to her feet.

In all honesty, he had expected, at the very least, a slap.

Instead, she hugged him.

"Tony!" He stiffened against the embrace, pulse racing. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

Was she… thanking him? "What?"

"Pepper and Happy told me what you did. You didn't leave him, Tony. You stayed even when you should've run. You saved him."

"If you're thanking me, then they didn't tell you enough."

She pulled away but kept both her hands braced on his shoulders. "What do you mean?"

"He took that bullet for me, May. Hell, it was my press conference. I made him come. God, this is all my fault."

May fixed him with one of the scariest glares he'd ever seen, and that was saying something for a man who was a billionaire tycoon by day and a superhero by night. "Don't you dare, Stark. Peter chose to take that bullet for you. Did you ask him to do that?"

"No."

"Then this isn't your fault." She gave him a teary smile, swallowing hard. "Now, are we going to kick his ass for that when he wakes up? You bet. So I need you on your A game, Stark. You better be preparing the verbal beatdown of the century."

He could hear the tremor behind her words, and he knew full well that neither of them had any real plans to discipline the kid when this was all over. But the humor helped lighten his mood, and he managed a smile that was only half a grimace.

"On it, Miss Parker. You can count on me."

"I know I can."

Hours passed. Doctors came in and out, pulling families aside to inform them of their loved ones' fates. At some point, Tony started a morbid game in his head. He tried to gauge just how awful the news was by the look on the Doctor's face as they emerged from the OR.

He counted at least four casualties by the time Peter's surgeon emerged.

Please don't let him be the fifth.

"Family of Peter Parker?"

Both Tony and May leapt to their feet. The billionaire found that he was incapable of reading the man's expression. The thought terrified him.

And then, the doctor smiled.

"He's going to be just fine."

That was all Tony ever needed to hear.

Peter woke up just twelve hours after a team of surgeons worked furiously to repair a tear in his right lung. The chest tube was removed twelve hours after that. Before long, the kid was sitting up in bed, smiling stubbornly past Tony and May's worried expressions, and spewing a litany of bullshit phrases like "I'm fine, you guys," and "oh no, it doesn't hurt at all, Mister Stark."

Basically, everything was back to normal.

It was on day two that Tony left to grab a cup of coffee and came back to see that Peter had turned on the news.

"It's an unfortunate problem, but not one that will be resolved by taking guns away. The shooting at the Stark Industries press conference today only affirms that."

"How so?"

"Tony Stark has stood openly for gun control, syncing with his negative stance on the manufacturing and distribution of weapons, and that belief lead his security to be grossly unprepared and unequipped to deal with a shooting like this."

"So you think that in standing against guns, Tony Stark actually brought this shooting about?"

"In many ways, yes. I do. If anything, we need to be working on arming more citizens and tightening sentences for criminal activities such as the distribution of drug-"

Peter flipped to the next news channel, where a series of pictures were sliding across the screen while a news anchor spoke solemnly in the background.

"Among the seventeen victims of the SI Shooting were two minors. Casey Briggs, age six, was walking by the SI building when she was struck in the chest, abdomen, and skull by stray bullets. She died en route to the hospital. It was reported this morning that Casey's twelve-year-old brother, Austin Briggs, who was with his sister when she sustained her fatal wounds, also passed away from his injuries in the early hours of this morning. Among the surviving victims is Peter Parker, the sixteen-year-old SI intern who is being heralded as a hero for pushing Tony Stark safely away from the chaos. It is reported that he is recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest in Stark's private medical facility. All reports suggest that he is stable and should make a full recovery."

Another click. This time, angry voices washed across the room as a collection of panelists argued.

"I would like to bring attention to the fact that Mister Larsen just lied on national televi-"

"What did I lie about?"

"You said that the gun show loophole doesn't exist. However, it's a known fact that many of the regulations that ensure the restricted distribution of assault rifles like the AR-15 are not enfor-"

"The gun show loop hole is majorly misconstrued by the left in order to-"

"I didn't interrupt you, so I would appreciate it if you would let me-"

"You just called me a liar on national television and you'd like me to stand for it? Like I was saying, the gun show loop hole is a-"

"I'd like you to let me finish my statement, Sir."

"Bullshit! Listen here-"

At this point, Tony had had enough. He pulled the remote out of Peter's hands and shut the screen off with a satisfying click.

"Entertaining, isn't it?"

Peter looked at Tony with tears welling in his eyes. "It's never gonna end, is it?"

"That's not true, buddy. One day, we'll all be dead and there won't be anyone around to create thoughtless violence."

His joke was met with a quivering lip and tear-stained cheeks. "Is that what it's gonna take?"

"Oh, Peter." Tony wiped some of the tears away with a calloused thumb. "I don't know. I hope not. But you can't control what other people do." He gestured towards the screen with a sigh. "That's part of the problem."

"Nobody's even resolving anything!" Peter's voice crept up an octave, and Tony felt a brief flash of fear for the kid's healing lung. "They're just yelling at each other! It's like they don't even care that people are dying, Mister Stark." The teenager's hands fisted in the front of his mentor's shirt as a sob shook his body. Tony didn't miss the way the kid winced as the movement pulled on his wound. "Why don't they care that people are dying?"

"It's easy to distance yourself from violence when you haven't seen it up close and personal like you and I have." Tony brushed a lock of hair out of Peter's face. "I used to do the same thing, kiddo. They called me the Merchant of Death. I sold weapons that killed hundreds of thousands of people. And I knew, logically, what my weapons could do. Hell, I produced them for maximum damaged. Maximum casualties. But up until Afghanistan, I'd never actually seen someone die because of them. And then I did. And that changed everything."

"But they're never going to see it."

Tony chose his next words carefully. He wasn't entirely sure if they would make the kid feel better or worse, but he said them anyway. "Eventually, everyone is going to be affected by this. It's spreading. Someday, sooner rather than later, most of the population will have had a personal experience with gun violence. Even if they themselves aren't affected, they'll be doing what I was doing just a few hours ago: watching someone they love laid out in a hospital bed, or a casket, with a bullet in their gut. And that changes perspectives."

"So that's what it's going to take? Enough people have to… have to die for them to listen?"

"Maybe, buddy. Like I said, I don't know. I can't see the future." Another sigh. He ran his hand over the crown of Peter's head and settled it on the back of his neck. "If I could, I would've never brought you to that press conference."

Peter shrugged. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known that that was gonna happen." His eyes dropped to his blanket. He picked dejectedly at a loose thread. "I'm sorry I scared you."

Oh, Peter. I don't deserve you.

Tony sat down on the edge of the kid's bed gently, cautious of his injuries, and tugged his hands away from the sheets. "Don't apologize. I just… I don't want you to ever sacrifice yourself for me again. Do you understand? I'm not worth it. You've got a life ahead of you, Peter. I've already got to live mine. Besides I…" I never want to face a world without you, kid. "I don't wanna face your scary aunt. She'd probably kill me for letting you get yourself killed, and then we'd both be dead. Seems a little counterproductive to me."

Peter just smiled and leaned into his mentor's side. "Guess so."

"And we gotta talk about that 'spidey sense' of yours. First of all, it needs a better name. Second of all, how the hell does it work? Once you're back on your feet, we're running experiments. A whole lot of them. What's the point of having wicked cool premonition powers if you don't even understand them?"

The kid giggled lightly, arm still wrapped protectively around his chest but eyes much calmer than before. "Won't testing them mean putting me in danger?"

Tony glared. "We'll work around that. For now, all you need to focus on is getting better and not ever getting shot again."

"I hate to break it to you, Mister Stark, but with my line of work, it seems kinda likely that something like this'll happen again."

This kid is going to be the death of me.

AN: The average time reported for the NYPD to respond to a situation involving an active shooter is about 3 minutes. In that time, someone with single, unmodified AR-15 can fire an average of 600 rounds.

Tony and Peter's conversation at the end of this chapter is inspired by a real conversation my dad and I had after a shooting at our local elementary school. I was watching all the news coverage and we pretty much had that exact exchange, plus and minus a few bits to make it fit the story.