~Mini Flashback~
"I need Bruce and Cho at the ready, Spider-Man's just about alive and needs immediate medical attention, " Tony announced into the comms as he pulled the boy close toward him as he flew carefully out of the building.
"C'mon, Spider-Man," Tony muttered as he flew at top speed to the tower, the young heroes unconscious body close to his chest.
Citizens who looked above were shocked when they saw THE Iron Man flying at top speed across the city's skyline with an... unconscious body, a dead body? But, Tony didn't care, well, he cared even less than he usually would anyway.
"Boss, Spider-Man's vitals are fading fast, he needs medical attention immediately," F.R.I.D.A.Y announced, with a slight urgency in her voice, it was clearly serious.
"Bruce, he's fading fast, I need a medical team on the roof if only to get the kid in a bed," Tony said into the comms, stress piling into his voice, he couldn't let Spider-Man die, he'd feel like that was on him- he let the hero, who sounded like he couldn't even be in his late twenties, carry on swinging in a building that would soon come crashing down.
He should have told him not to, or at least checked for him before it was too late, he should have gone back straight away, if he did, the hero probably wouldn't be unconscious in his arms with his vitals fading fast.
"C'mon, don't die on me," Tony muttered to the young hero as he soared through the sky, somehow going even faster than before.
Not even a minute later, Tony landed on the top of the tower with the young hero, who still hadn't stirred at all, in his arms.
A medical team immediately came running over, they had a bed with them and were all clearly shocked by his state. The head nurse immediately took control of the situation.
"Mr. Stark, can you please get him in the bed, we need to get him downstairs ASAP,"
Without hesitation, Tony laid the young hero in the bed, nodding the nurses off immediately after.
Upon seeing that the hero was in the best hands he could be in, Tony let out a sigh of relief, the kid wasn't guaranteed to survive, but he sure had the best shot he could at it.
"Cap, how's the situation downtown?" He asked as he began to walk to the edge of the roof, "Need any help?"
"Everything wrapping up here, we're all about to come back. There're no signs of criminal activity around the area and the civilians are in safe hands. So, could you just put on the TV, I think we just want to flop down on the couch," The other's murmured in agreement at the Captains final statement, it was hardly their worst mission, but it was pretty exhausting running around after civilians and talking to God-knows how many people, not to mention the smoke they had most likely inhaled.
Tony grinned, "You got it, Cap,"
He gladly stepped out of his suit, it wasn't that he hated being a hero, he loved it, but the suit was hardly comfortable, and he just wanted to walk like a normal person.
With his suit on his tail, Tony strode into his building, completely focused on flopping down onto the couch, he stayed like that until he saw the medical wing.
There was a small body lying in the middle of a crowd of doctors and nurses, he was hooked up to a ridiculous number of machines and was faced by exclusively worried faces. God, that had to be bad.
Immediately forgetting about his mission to the couch, Tony strode into the medical wing, he had a perfect neutral mask on, but his eyes pooled with obvious worry, he could have prevented this, he should have prevented this, but he didn't, and now Spider-Man looked as if he was on his deathbed.
Tony quickly pushed through the crowd of nurses to see the hero; his jaw dropped when he saw him.
The vigilantes face practically hurt to look at, it was covered in dirt, but you could tell he was paper white underneath, his cheeks were sallows and he looked like a skeleton, he had bruises and dried blood everywhere, old and new, and, worst of all, he couldn't even be 16.
"How is he?" He asked, obviously distracted by the state of the teen in front of him.
"Weak," Bruce replied with obvious worry on his face, "We haven't finished the examination yet, but his body just seems to be giving up, he's got about 10 broken ribs, who knows how many broken bones, his lungs seem ready to collapse and we don't know what else,"
"God," Tony muttered, shaking his head slightly, this was too much for anyone, let alone a teenager.
"Tony, we need to hurry, do you think you could wait elsewhere, we'll keep you updated," Helen Cho said, ushering Tony out of the room as she grabbed another sheet of paper.
Tony simply nodded and walked out the room, he didn't want to complicate anything any further, he knew the kid's chances grew slimmer every extra second he was there.
"Tony, what's wrong?" The mechanic spun around, clearly surprised to be broken out of his thought.
"Tony?" Natasha repeated, her brows furrowing slightly in confusion, "You OK?"
He nodded slightly, "Yeah, I just, I have something I need to tell the rest of the team,"
"To the living room then," Nat said, still slightly concerned for her friend, he walked through the corridor in a slight daze, his brain working faster than ever and, judging by the worry and regret in his eyes, it wasn't working on anything positive.
The two walked into the living room and saw exactly what they had been expecting, all of the team were flopped on the couches with Friends playing on the TV, none were really paying attention, they were too focused on talking among themselves.
"Hey Tony," Clint said, giving him a slight wave, he furrowed his brows when he looked properly at his friend, "You alright, man?"
"He's just a kid," Tony said, almost to himself, shaking his head as he sat down on the edge of the couch.
The other Avengers looked at each other in confusion, who was just a kid?
"A kid?" Natasha asked, cocking her head slightly as she settled on the couch, squeezing between Clint and Wanda.
"Spider-Man, I just saw him, God, he looked awful. He's couldn't be older than 16 and he just held up a God damn building," Tony put his head in his hands, "I shouldn't have left him in there, if I told him no, that we could handle it, or at least grabbed him from the building, he wouldn't be in there, fighting for his life and losing when he should just be in school!"
The room stayed silent for a couple of minutes, the team were shocked that Spider-Man, who had so much talent, who risked his life on the daily, who was fighting for his life, wasn't even out of high school.
"Are you sure he's 16?" Steve asked, silently praying that Tony would shrug and say that maybe he wasn't.
"Yeah, the kid doesn't even look that, you can tell, Cap, he might be a little older, but there's no way he can even drink, I don't think there's a way he could be in college yet,"
"I tried to beat-up a 16-year-old," The Captain muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
"In fairness, Cap, you didn't win, he could probably take on any one of us," Sam responded, trying to ease off his friends' guilt.
"Do we know what happened to him?" Natasha asked, her face was neutral but there was a hint of worry in her voice.
"The kid was coming in and out of the for building longer than we were and he was just in spandex, he took in a lot of smoke. He was in there when it came crashing down, when I found him I think he had just blacked out after holding the building up, a couple more seconds and he would have been gone. Bruce doesn't even know the extent of his injuries yet, but there sure as Hell gonna hurt, I don't even know if he's gonna make it. God, this is on me," Tony responded, his voice becoming heavier and more regretful as he went on.
"Tony, this is not your fault, trust me, its no one's 'fault', and the kids obviously strong, he'll make it, if he had the super strength to hold up the building, even for a little bit, he'll probably have a healing factor, especially since his powers seem to enhance him in almost every way," Natasha nodded at her teammate, well, he was more like her brother if anything, her annoying brother, but still her brother.
"How about we just sit and watch Friends? F.R.I.D.A.Y, can you give us regular updates on the kid?"
"Of course, America's Ass,"
The others Avengers smirked at the AI's name for Steve and began to quieten down to watch the TV, they wouldn't admit it, but they felt awful about Spider-Man, he probably wasn't even out of high school and they had decided to try to hunt him down and then forgot about him when he was in an unstable building. Now he was in a hospital room with his heartbeat slowing down.
True to her word, F.R.I.D.A.Y gave the team regular updates on Spider-Man, and the Avengers grew increasingly worried after each one, the AI told them that his full diagnosis was yet to be confirmed, but, to the Avengers horror, listed off a ridiculous amount of injuries, she also said that the doctors believed that he was malnourished, but weren't sure, she then told them that he was going into surgery for multiple things, the doctors said it was risky, but was the heroes last shot.
The surgery went on for almost 7 hours, the Avengers didn't do much during the time, they decided not to train since they were already tired from their spontaneous mission and, although they didn't discuss it, they all stayed together on the couch so that they could remain updated on the young hero.
The team was tucking into pizza when Bruce walked into the room, his scrubs were covered in blood and he had obviously just come out of the surgery, the Avengers's faces fell when they saw the doctor, they expected the worst.
"Is he..." Tony asked quietly, obviously not wanting to finish his sentence.
"No, he just about pulled through, we had to restart his heart 2 times, but he made it, the kid obviously has advanced healing, there's no way in Hell he'd survive if he didn't," Bruce responded, obviously exhausted.
The team flopped back on the sofa, sighing in relief, they didn't have to feel responsible for a young hero's death.
"But, the kids in a coma, we're getting him properly cleaned up now, we- we don't know when or if he'll wake up yet, we'll try to find out tomorrow, but the kid's healing factor is something we've never seen before, so we probably won't be able to work it out,"
"Could we see him? I just want to know how the kids doing," Tony asked, fiddling with his hands slightly as he looked up.
Bruce gave his 'Science Bro' a small smile, "You can come by tomorrow if you want, he'll be all cleaned up by then,"
The Avengers nodded, happy to know that the kid was doing OK, well, at least that the kid wasn't dead. They carried on watching movies and ended up going to sleep at a relatively decent hour, there wasn't as much guilt weighing them down since they knew the kid was alive. It was still there, but most had been lifted.
~Le Time Skip- The Next Morning~
"So," Tony said, clapping his hands, "Who's ready to see Spider-Man?"
He got a response of nods, hums of agreement, and an "INDEED I AM, SON OF STARK!" as the team put away their dishes.
Soon, the team was all walking towards the medical wing (well, most were, Clint was sprinting ahead), nearly all of the Avengers had apprehensive eyes, they didn't know the extent of the kid's injuries, and weren't sure if they actually wanted to.
"Here we go," Nat said, a weak, forced smile on her face as she opened the door and came into the medical room with the rest of the team close on her tail.
When they came towards the bed, most let out small gasps at the boy in front of them, those who didn't gasp's eyes pooled with shock and sorrow.
The kid in front of them didn't even look 16, he was somehow younger than they thought, he had small cuts littered on his young face and his cheekbones looked like they were going to cut through his deathly-white skin, which was only made worse by the contrast of his swollen black eye. The teen's expression was subtle, but, even with closed eyes, he seemed to be distressed.
The teen's body was hidden by a hospital blanket, but the heroes could make bandages underneath as well as see the many wires attached to him.
No one said a word for a couple of minutes, the only sound in the white room was the steady heart rate monitor, but even that was quieter than it should be, it was obvious the young hero was only barely alive.
The team all had the same things running through their heads.
No one deserves this, especially not a kid.
God, this is terrible.
Is he going to pull through?
How did we ever think he was anything but a hero?
I should have stopped this.
The Avengers were bought out of their thoughts when Dr. Cho walked into the room with a clipboard.
"The kid's just about alive, he has advanced healing, so, hopefully, with the medicine, he should wake up- but we don't really know when. The kid had so many different injuries its hard to 100% tell what happened before the building fell, but it certainly wasn't anything a kid should be going through. We want his body to focus on healing as much as possible, so you'll have to wait for him to tell you himself,"
The Avengers nodded solemnly, feeling awful for the young hero. They all left the room with their heads down, they didn't think the kid would have looked so awful, they knew it was bad, but not that bad.
They decided that the teen didn't need a background check and that they would question him when he woke up, well, if he woke up. They also resolved to keep him from being a superhero for a while, it was too big of a responsibility for a young kid, they just wanted to keep him safe.
With that decided, the team carried on with their day, pushing the image of the young boy to the back of their minds, they couldn't do anything but hope he would make it through.
So, Spider-Man was left alone in his hospital room, that was until one Avenger came in a few days later, a confused and curious look on his face.
A/N- Hia! So, I kinda like cliffhangers if you can't tell, but, given the world's current situation (if you are from the future- it's early May 2020 so I'm in quarantine) the next update should be up really soon!
As always, please do vote and comment and follow me so that you're updated as soon as the cliffhangers resolved!
Have a Marvellous day my Geeky Peeps and do something to make Natasha Romanoff and Peggy Carter proud!