I sat next to Pepper after Bruce and Helen left, to let the others know how Tony was doing. I gave Pepper's hand a gentle squeeze, as we sat in silence, when I heard Tony's heart start to beat wildly, and I immediately but carefully pushed Pepper's chair away just as Tony lost it. He grabbed me, and I managed to move my head just enough so he could only get a tight grip on my shirt.
"Tony! Calm down! Your in the tower! It's me, Peter!" I said.
"Peter? What?" Tony asked and he let me go. I let out a slow breath and gently pushed him back down.
"You've been out close to a month. You lost a lot of blood, more than you should have. Broken spine in two parts, internal bleeding. A rib was puncturing your lung, your appendix ruptured, so you don't have that anymore." I said and he looked at me in shock.
"Broken spine in two parts? It doesn't feel broken. I can move."
"It's because it's not broken anymore. With Pepper's permission, Helen, Bruce and I injected you with my serum. You've been healing faster with the serum, as well as being sickly."
"Sickly?"
"High temperatures, and some violent shaking, but we got that under control, until it was time for you to wake up. Now, are you calmer now?"
"Ya. God, Kid I'm sorry. I didn't know where I was for a moment."
"It's fine, but I'm putting you down for therapy with Sam." I said and then turned, nodding to Pepper.
"Sorry, for pushing you away." I said.
"It's fine. You were just doing your job." She said softly before she walked closer to Tony, and held his hand, where they talked softly while I gave Tony a check up.
"Everything seems normal to me. When you've got the all clear from the actual doctors, we'll see about getting you some food, and moving around. I'll leave you two alone, for now." I said and saw them both nod before I started to walk away.
"You get up from that bed, before your giving the okay, and I'll web your ass to it. And no funny business either."
"Party pooper." Tony muttered.
"I can still hear you."
"LEAVE!"
"Welcome back, Tony." I said and I saw him smile some, before I was gone, heading down to the common room.
"Tony's awake, and he's talking to Pepper. Do NOT bombard him or I'll block ANY and ALL access to everything coffee in this tower for you guys." I said and they all paled in horror. Even Nat, but the most pale was Clint, which was pretty funny. After a few minutes, I tilted my head to the side and sighed.
"I SAID NO FUNNY BUSINESS! GET YOUR ASS BACK ON THAT BED!" I yelled making Rhodes, Nat and Sam start laughing as we all heard Tony start cursing at me, but I heard him settle back onto the bed, so I nodded at that.
Two days later, after given the all clear from Helen and Bruce, I was helping Tony walk around.
"It's weird. Feeling this light."
"You get used to it after awhile. Any back pain?" I asked.
"No. Feeling great. Better than ever, actually." Tony said and I nodded.
"You okay there, Kid?"
"It's just. The day of the attack. What do you remember?" I asked.
"Scanning for heat signatures. One minute I'm in the air, the next, I felt like I was hit with Thor's axe, at twice the speed before I was slammed into the ground, with no power in my suit. It was then when I noticed I couldn't feel anything but pain before I blacked out, unable to call out for anyone."
"Ya. We had to call Shuri and T'Challa, for her help. It was a massive blur from what FRIDAY managed to record, but it was enough to start tracking him down. Steve and Sam went to the last known location but nothing as of yet. Harley and Shuri, been working on your suit a lot, while i kept an eye on you more since I can hear and sense what they can't." I said.
"You are holding something back from me, kid."
"I heard your spine, snap itself back together. It was gross. It's one thing to hear smaller bones, like nose, or fingers breaking but hearing your spine unbreaking was gross." I said and he looked at me in shock.
"Kid."
"It was gross to hear, but at the same time. That's when I knew, you'd be okay. God. i'm so fucking glad, I had that much serum made for you and the others. I am NOT prepared to take care of everything that you would have left behind." I said.
"I'm sorry. I never want to scare you, Pepper or the others like that. I had no idea it would happen." Tony said and then he hugged me, making me smirk.
"Is this a hug, or are you just trying to reach for something behind me?" I asked.
"This is a hug, Underoos." TOny said with a laugh, making me laugh as well before I gave him a hug.
"Thank you. You saved my life."
"I helped." I said.
"No. The serum was all your idea in the first place. Brucie-Bear just helped by giving you pointers. Helen helped with medic. Everything was all you, even when I was under surgery. You saved my life, so thank you."
"You put the universe back in order just so you could yell at me for what I said. It's only fair if I keep you alive now." I said.
"Fair enough. Come on. Let's head on up and celebrate." Tony said and I nodded before we both headed up. Over the course of several days, Shuri and T'Challa left, while I worked on projects and paperwork, when Bruce walked up to me.
"Hey, Peter. I need you to sign off on these for the chem labs."
"Huh? Oh, ya, sure." I said as I pulled out a pen from my pocket.
"What's it for?" I asked.
"Testing of new medicines." Bruce said and I nodded before I signed everything I needed to and handed it back.
"How much sleep have you gotten?"
"Uh, nine." I said.
"FRIDAY?" Bruce asked.
"Peter, has gotten a total of nine hours of sleep, in the past three weeks."
"Traitor." I muttered as I looked away from Bruce's face of disappointment. That was a look I wasn't immune to. A moment later, I felt a presence before everything went black. When, I came to I was in my room. I blinked and turned my head to see that the sun was up.
"FRIDAY?"
"You've had a total of thirty hours of sleep. It's currently eight-fifty three in the morning. It's sixty-five degrees outside, and we should expect a high in the low eighty's. Rhodes is in the kitchen with Aunt May, and Steve cooking breakfast. Natasha and Clint are training, as well as watching over BOSS's strength training. Sam is with Bucky for therapy. BOSS Ladies are currently not in the building as they are heading to an early morning meeting, but both of them have food and coffee. MJ says to text her to let her know you are awake. Harley and Abbie have left the tower, for their volunteer work, while Luciel is off to her classes. Thor is expected to arrive some time today or tomorrow."
"Thanks, FRIDAY." I said as I got out of bed, grabbed some clean clothes and headed to the shower.
"Morning, Sleeping Beauty." Aunt May said and I made a face at her, as I grabbed the orange juice which made her laugh.
"How you feeling?" Aunt May asked me.
"Hungry."
"Naturally." Rhodes said before I jumped in and helped them to finish breakfast. Two days later, Harley and I were packing up and heading back to MIT, where I was softly talking to him about the Serum, in Italian since Nat and Tony both taught us it, so not many people were able to understand what we were talking about, where we soon fell into our normal schedule. Due to us both working with Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner, we ended up passing our first classes with flying colors, so Tony, Rhodes, and Bruce had the board, put us in the harder classes, despite only being freshman in College: Where Harley and I were able to work on harder projects. It was still easy but it was more challenging then what we were doing. A month later, I was on my back working on my half of the project when I saw Harley's shoes.
"Harls, I need the socket wrench and a rag." I said.
"Ya, here. Hey, how much longer on your end?" Harley asked as he carefully passed them both to me.
"I'm finishing up now, actually. Why?" I asked.
"You got something from home. Looks like Bruce's handwriting." He said.
"Huh. I'll be out in a moment." I said as I kept working.
"Okay. Oh I was talking to Tom, earlier."
"Oh. How's he doing?"
"He's nervous?"
"What? Why?"
"He's planning on asking out Lacy."
"Ah! What'd you say?"
"Told him to relax, get some advice from Pepper, MJ, and Aunt May."
"Good choice."
"I know. Mom passed that big test she was worried about, too."
"That's great news!"
"Ya. Mom said that everyone is going to celebrate over dinner and wine." Harley said and I finished working, and rolled out, where I sat up, tossing the socket wrench to the tool box. I wiped my hands with the clean rag, and then took the thick packet from Harley.
"Ya, this is Bruce's handwriting." I said as i carefully opened it to reveal papers.
"Oh this better not be work paperwork." I said and Harley snorted but as I pulled it out. I read over it and then just stared in shock.
"-Eter. Peter!" I heard.
"Huh?"
"Dude, I've been calling your name for ten minutes. Are you okay?" Harley asked and I just handed him the papers, I was holding. I watched him read it, stare at it in shock, then looked at me.
"HOLY SHIT!" He said before he shook me back in forth.
"When were you going to tell me you sent a letter out to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for Medicine?!" He yelled at me.
"That's because I didn't! I never even thought about it!"
"Then who di-."
"Bruce and Tony." We both said and I grabbed my phone, where I quickly called Tony.
"Hey, Kid. How's school?"
"School's fine. WHAT THE FUCK, ANTHONY!" I said loudly.
"Oh good, you got the package. Congratulations, you are a Nobel Peace Prize of Medicine winner. How do you feel?"
"WHEN?"
"About a month and two days, before you went back to school." Tony said and I thought back until it clicked.
"The paperwork, i sighed. Bruce said it was for the Chem labs." I said.
"Ding, ding we have a winner. No, but seriously how do you feel?"
"Shocked mostly. How?"
"Bruce sent it in, with a long recommendation letter of what the serum could do for the future of medicine. Honey-Bear and I even wrote a letter of recommendation, of how the serum healed our backs, and that nothing bad has happened, at all."
"Meaning, no murderous thoughts, and the like." I said.
"Exactly. Shit!" Tony said and I heard something go flying across his lab.
"Was that a screwdriver you threw, to hard again?" I asked.
"Shut up. Anyway, they got back to us in record time, with the papers saying you won. We all did a small celebration here, when we read over it. Stark Industries have your serum patented and all that jazz. I'll make sure Pepper or Scary Girl calls you with more details on when you'll receive your prize."
"Her name's MJ, Tony." I said.
"Hm. Anyway, despite how you responded when I answered your call. I'm proud of you, Pete. I always knew you were gonna change the world, whether it be as Spider-Man, or yourself."
"Thanks, Tony."
"Anytime, Kid. Tell the other, Kid. He's grounded."
"Do I wanna know?"
"He knows what he did! Bye, Peter."
"Bye, Tony." i said and he hung up.
"Tony, says your grounded." I said as I furrowed my brows which made Harley lose his shit.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"I carefully placed cans of silly string in his lab. He must have found some of them."
"Dude!"
"Sorry, but you were stressing over R&D paperwork at the time."
"Fair enough." I said before I glanced at the papers.
"Wanna bounce and get some food to celebrate?" I asked.
"Sounds like a plan." Harley said and we left after cleaning up some.
One month later, I was half listening to to the committee talk about how all of this years protecepets, where some of the smartest, kindness and hardest working people, organizations to ever come through, before they started calling names. I tuned out before a small pinch to my leg, from MJ pulled me back to reality, just in time for them to call my name. I stood up and carefully made my way to the stage as everyone clapped. A moment later, I saw that it was Rhodes holding my medal.
"It's only fair, I give you this kid since I was the first one you healed." He said with a smile and I lowered my head some, and he placed it on, then made sure it was straight, sent me a secret wink, before standing next to me, where he sat a hand on my shoulder, and we both smiled as pictures were taken. I looked over at Aunt May to see that she was smiling but was crying some. I smiled at her, before looking over to Tony, who was beaming with his glasses on, most likely hiding his own wet eyes. I did a short speech on how I was thankful for this opportunity, but I wouldn't have gotten here if it wasn't for Tony Stark coming to me for an internship my sophomore year of High school, Dr. Bruce Banner pointing me in the right direction, or the constant support from my Aunt and Girlfriend, before I went back to my seat after saying one last thank you.
When we were allowed to leave, we all headed over to celebrate over dinner, and I walked up to Tony.
"This wouldn't have happened if you didn't come recruit me." I siad.
"I hated how I did recruit you, but I'm also really glad I did. You really do deserve this, Pete." Tony said as he tapped my medal.
"I know your probably going to hate this, but thank you. For everything."
"Anytime, Pete." he said before he gave me a hug.
"Now, enough emotions. Let's get back to partying!" He said and I laughed but nodded, before I headed over to Aunt May.