Dialed to Eleven

5

Peter was out doing his normal patrols when he saw two men mugging an old lady in an alley. He stuck to the side of a building close by and had Karen zoom in a little. He saw that one had a knife, but neither of them had guns, so he was probably okay.

Peter swung down quietly right outside the alley and said, "Hey, guys. You know it's rude to mug people, right?" The guys turned around and the guys without a knife swung for a punch at Peter, which he very easily dodged. He punched the guy in return, just hard enough to make him pass out, but not hard enough to cause any actual damage, hopefully.

However, when he turned around, he saw that the other guy had the woman locked underneath his arm, knife to her throat. "Woah, it's okay, we can just talk this out," Peter said, putting his arms out, trying to reach this unidentified mugger. He'd never dealt with anyone taking someone hostage like this. They normally just ran away. Peter didn't know how to act.

Peter started inching forward. "I don't want to hurt anyone!" the mugger yelled.

"I know, I know," Peter responded, getting closer, "just let the nice lady go." Peter was getting even closer. By the time he got in arm's length of the man, the lady was loosened in his grip. The man was looking down, and Peter thought he was going to let her go. Until he looked back up and stabbed Peter in the torso.

Peter hunched over, not expecting something like that to happen and because of how close they were to each other, he couldn't dodge it. He could, however, quickly turn around and web up the man who had taken that as his escape route. Peter had him face down on the concrete, stuck there. He turned to the old lady, "Are you alright?"

She nodded, then concerningly looked down at his torso. "Are you okay?"

Peter nodded. It was the superhero's job to protect the public, and they didn't need to worry about something as small as a stab wound. Muggers sometimes got a little cut on him here and there, but it always turned out okay. But this one feels kind of deep, Peter thought to himself.

Deciding to worry about himself later, Peter escorted the woman away, then called the police to come pick the muggers up. He also put a little bit of web on the wound to help it stop bleeding a little. "Mr. Parker, the blade entered your torso quite deeply. Would you like to contact Mr. Stark?"

"No, it's alright, Karen. It'll be alright by morning."

"I'd advise otherwise, Mr. Parker. Medical attention may be needed."

"I'm good. I'll just go home and relax for a little." Truth be told, Peter didn't know if he could go on any longer. The pain was killing him and he assumed the amount of blood he was losing was terrible. So he stayed true to his word, swinging home and ending patrol early for the night.

When he did get home, the surface had already started to patch itself together. So Peter simply put a proper bandage on, ate some dinner, then went to bed, hoping it would all be better in the morning.

---

Peter woke up around 4 am the next day, his stomach killing him. He sat up, which almost made him throw up all the contents in his stomach, but he managed to keep it down. He ripped to the bandage, only to see it fully healed over. So why the hell does it feel like my entire torso is on fire?

He tried standing up, using his desk as support. For the second time his stomach turned over, but Peter forced himself to keep it under. A headache started developing, as well as a strange tingling in his hands.

He didn't know what to do, so he picked up his phone and called the first number that came up: Mr. Stark's. After a few rings, he picked up. "Hey, kid. What's up. Why aren't you asleep? It's-oh shit kid it's really late."

"Mr. Stark?" Peter whimpered out, scared if he talked any louder his stomach would expunge any contents.

Tony's tone immediately changed. He could tell something was wrong from the two words he said. "Pete? What's wrong are you okay?"

"I, um," Peter's feet started to sway as he couldn't keep his balance anymore. He collapsed on the floor, leaving Tony screaming his name on the other side of the line.

---

This really needs to stop happening, Tony thought to himself as he was flying straight to his kid. As of late, there had been too many times that he had to fly to Peter, not knowing what was wrong or if he was okay.

He flew in through Peter's window to see an unconscious Peter lying down. "Fri, what's wrong."

"Scanning for injuries."

"Go faster." Tony whispered as he picked Peter up, already flying back to a ready Dr. Cho.

"Internal bleeding of the liver detected."

Shit. "What caused it."

"It would appear to be some sort of blade."

Tony remembered seeing a scattered bandage on the floor. He lifted Peter's shirt up only to be greeted with a perfectly healthy looking stomach. "Where's the entry wound?"

"It appears to have healed, sir."

"So why hasn't the liver?"

"Internal injuries take longer to heal and Mr. Parker couldn't have known anything was amiss due to the lack of visible wounds on the outside."

"He got stabbed and didn't think to call me?" Friday didn't answer, obviously picking up on the rhetorical question. Tony finally reached the tower, and handed Peter off to Dr. Cho, a sight he wished wasn't all so familiar.

---

Peter woke up not too much later. Thanks to new tech from Wakanda, medicine became much easier. "Hey, kid."

"Mr. Stark?" Peter barely mumbled.

"Yeah, kid, it's me."

"What happened?"

"You got stabbed and didn't think to tell me about it."

"I-"

"Hey, it's okay. I'm not mad." Tony paused. "Okay maybe a little." Peter looked down with his eyes he could barely keep open. "More at Karen. She's supposed to tell me about this stuff." Tony was trying to break the ice and Peter appreciated it.

Peter chuckled. "I told her not to. She wanted to though."

"See, she shouldn't be allowed to not tell me. It's all part of the Baby Monitor protocol." Peter laughed a little harder this time, but then groaned in pain. "Hey, hey, you good?"

"Yeah, just, kinda hurts to laugh."

Tony smiled. "Just, try to get some sleep, okay?" Peter nodded off, falling asleep. Tony looked at Peter, who looked so peaceful sleeping; how he should look all the time. Not the kid who feels like he has the weight of an entire world on his shoulders and it's his to carry alone.

Tony wanted more than anything to get Peter out of the life he was currently in, so he could live out the rest of his childhood in a way Tony never got to. But he knew that could never happen and he just had to help Peter find his way on the path he was on.

So Tony walked out of the room, setting to reprogram Karen to not allow something like this to ever happen again.

This chapter has more to do with his healing than his actual senses but I thought it was a kind of cool idea nonetheless.

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