Avengers Family

Blood

Everyone rushed off, but Steve saw the defeated look on Dr. Cho's face. There was no way for a science experiment on that scale to finish up in time at the rapid rate the "infection" was spreading.

"What if-" Cho jumped as Natasha emerged from whatever well-concealed corner she had been on, "we took the spider's blood."

"Peter?"

"He's O-. Universal donor. And he has self-healing abilities."

"How did you know that?" Steve looked at her in disbelief for a second before remembering who he was talking to. He then sprung up and grabbed the keys to his bike.

Within ten minutes, Peter was in the room, clad in pajamas and with bed hair. "What's happening?"

"Steve didn't tell you?" Cho sounded surprised. Peter has been very compliant in letting her push him into a chair and start taking his blood. She had assumed he knew the situation.

"He said there wasn't much time and that they needed me but the suit was unnecessary." Peter shrugged. "I mean, when Captain America says you got to do something, what other choice are you going to make?"

Cho grinned. Ever since Tony had introduced the team to Peter, everyone had enjoyed having him around. For all his shitty past, he was the least complicated Avenger, willing to go with the flow and actually use somewhat healthy coping mechanisms. But her smile only lasted a moment before she explained the situation.

She only took a few vials of blood, they wanted to at least run a few preliminary tests before doing the entire transfusion.

While they were waiting, Peter snuck into Tony's room. His arm, from mid bicep to wrist, looked gnarly. The skin was sloughing off in chunks. Peter winced in sympathy pain at the sight.

"What are you doing here kid?" Tony didn't seem to know that Peter had been brought to the building. He was clearly trying to mask any negative emotion in his voice.

"I'm here to help you. The doctors want me to-"

Tony's eyes widened. "You don't have to do anything that you don't want to. Or more specifically, that will harm you."

"It's just giving blood." Peter forced a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, obviously trying to avoid looking at the damage to Tony's arm.  "I would do much more if you ever needed it."

Tony suddenly clenched up and winced.

"Mr. Stark, are you alright?" Peter instinctually grabbed Tony's shoulders, but removed his grip as soon as he realized he was making it worse. "Sorry, sorry."

Peter continued to look over Tony with concern until the older man managed to grit out his reassurances that he was ~mostly~ fine.

"It's -"

"Don't say it's fine." Peter frantically ran to the hallway to find the doctor testing his blood.

She was in the lab, as predicted. "It should be another thirty minutes."

"He doesn't have thirty minutes!" Peter yelled, uncharacteristically, "he's-he's dying in there."

"If we don't test there's a chance that the enhancements could kill him anyway." She continued pipetting blood into more tubes to test.

Not a minute later, her pager went off. She glanced at it and then quickly grabbed Peter's arm and rushed him to Tony's room.

Tony was seizing. Three doctors were checking his vitals and his arm to see if there was any hope.

A chair was rolled in and Peter sat down. The nurse prepped to take his blood.

"Usually, we'd collect it in a bag and then administer it too him, but the infection has spread much faster than we thought and at this rate, that might not be enough."

Tears were already streaming down Peter's face, but the admittance that his mentor might not be okay was crushing him.

"There is a way to speed up the blood donation with this pump, but it's more dangerous for you."

"I'll do it."

The nurse quickly explained the risks and Peter consented. The blood started draining from him.

He started...

He started to feel a little dizzy.

All he could hear was blood rush past his ears.

His eyesight was all grainy and he just wanted to throw up or go to sleep.

He knew the doctor told him to tell them when he felt unwell. But Tony still looked so pale. He could stand this for a couple more minutes.

He'd just lean his head back and close his eyes for a few seconds.

When he opened his eyes, there was only one doctor and Tony was gone. He was in a whole different room all together.

He tried to sit up but was immediately stopped by an incredible headache. The doctor spoke calmly and gently laid him back in bed. "Tony is going to be fine. You saved his life. You should have told us what was happening though. You gave everyone a scare when you collapsed on the floor."

Peter felt relieves that Tony was safe, but guilty about passing out. "I didn't detract from his care?" A bit scared of the answer.

Another voice answered. "No, you don't have anything to feel bad about. You saved Tony's life. He's going to be as good as new."

Peter looked over to see his aunt, and smiled. Her eyes were red from worry, but she managed to smile back and give him a hug.

She nodded and left the room, explaining and apologizing that she still had to get to work.

"I have some water and snacks. You'll need to stay in bed for at least four hours. Would you like anything else?"

Peter flipped his head back around, but apparently it was too fast and the pounding in his head intensified. He groaned and held his head.

Unfortunately, Tony had just woken up, and, upon learning what had happened, busted out of his room to see Peter groaning, curled in, and grabbing his head.

"Peter?!" He exclaimed and rushed to the boys side.

A parade of doctors and other Avengers and Pepper and Rhodey followed in, chastising Tony for getting up. Either adrenaline or super blood had allowed him to get past all of them in the beginning, which also seemed to indicate him getting better, but they still didn't appreciate it.

"You're okay Mr. Stark!" Peter straightened out and smiled.

Tony made a mental note for later that the kid was way too good at covering up pain.

"You saved me. I can't thank you enough." Tony sincerely gazed at Peter and then gave him a quick hug, "but seriously, don't you ever do that again."

Everyone else gave them space.

They meant to talk more, but, from how exhausting the ordeal had been, both wound up cuddling and asleep in the bed.

——————

Clint snickered into his coffee mug as he glanced up at the billionaire for the hundredth time that morning.

"What did I say? Stop watching me! I'm figuring it out." Tony once again attempted to remove the doorknob that was stuck to his hand, but only succeeded in transferring to his other hand, flinging across the room, denting the wall, and getting some silverware stuck to his other hand.

Even Natasha started smirking at that. "At least Cho said the venom wasn't taking to your body. It'll only be like this for a week."

But as he looked up and made eye contact with Clint, who had a mischievous glint in his eye, Tony knew it was going to be a long week.